


Here Comes the Rain Again

by herpatoidAcephalist



Category: Gravity Falls, Homestuck
Genre: Anxiety, Falling In Love, Gravity Falls Spoilers, M/M, Post-Canon, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 04:58:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 65,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15856677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herpatoidAcephalist/pseuds/herpatoidAcephalist
Summary: Dirk Strider, immortal god and co-creator of a new universe, hooks up with a sexy older scientist. It's totally casual, except for the part where he falls in love. Can Dirk explain the plot of Homestuck without losing him forever?





	1. A Casual Hookup

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to J, without whom it would never have gone beyond a oneshot. Thank you for everything.
> 
> This chapter contains sexual content.

Infinite is infinite. It contains the gods that created it; they live in the city together. Sometimes that's enough for the gods, but sometimes it's just a little too strange, living in a house made of atoms they won into glorious existence. Sometimes a guy needs a night out on the extradimensional town. Normally it's Jake. Sometimes it's Roxy. Tonight, it's Dirk.

Dirk doesn't feel lonely, unhitching himself from reality to go exploring on his own. He just feels alone. Exceptional, for sure, but also apart. While his friends star in movies or run kingdoms, he finds himself lacking ambition for the first time in his life. There is no Game to win, anymore, and his prize is an eternity to fill with stuff and junk. His robots and his music are badass, certainly, but eternity is a long time.

He flips through worlds until the colors blur, like he's living inside a kaleidoscope, like he's setting the dimension on random. Immortality comes with a constant yearning for something new, on top of his built-in occasional desire to  _ be  _ someone new.

Dirk searches until he hears a new sound, and then slows down to a stop.

The new sound is set to a rhythm, and is muffled behind the walls of what must be a club. No matter what visual spectrum of light is considered the local average, in Dirk's experience, clubs tend to favor neon. Coupled with the music and the line out the door, Dirk's certain that he's going to dance tonight. Maybe have a few drinks. Maybe pretend to be the sort of person who goes out more often than once or twice a year.

The street is packed with maybe-carapaces, black and chitinous, as well as a full cast of gooier and less three-dimensional beings. Dirk shrugs past them, nodding to the sunflower yellow bouncer as he enters.

The club is seemingly modeled after a tornado, with a staircase spiraling along the walls, leading past several bars and tables until it reaches the eye, where the dancing happens. The DJ is hidden behind a glass wall, and Dirk nods to them, as well—for a gaseous form, they're jockeying the discs with aplomb. Dirk settles at the bar midway from the entrance, and takes a long moment to scan the room. Lights seem to be scuttling freely along the walls, and Dirk realizes they're phosphorescent isopods, ducking in and out of small holes counter to the beat of the music. The dancing crowd is inside the naturally-occurring hive of a benign species of bug, and Dirk must admit, that's pretty rad.

He isn't the only one taking in the sights, he notices. A few seats down sits a humanoid bespectacled brunette, notebook in hand, sketching a passing neon green pillbug. He's writing with an honest-to-God fountain pen, and the look of concentration on his face is comical, but charming. Dirk can't help but find a seat near him, and watch him over the rim of his glass.

Unbelievably, the man doesn't seem to notice Dirk's calculated approach until a full minute has passed. He looks up at Dirk and adjusts his glasses, as though Dirk is a bright light he can't quite handle. "Wow," says the man, voice deep and strong. "Are you a human?"

Not the most charismatic pickup line Dirk has ever heard, but intriguing enough. "I don't know," Dirk says, raising his glass in a small toast. "Wanna take a closer look and find out for yourself?" 

He can't be more obviously playing a part. But this part makes the stranger red around the ears, and that's worth staying in character. Dirk glances at the journal, meaning to maybe compliment the man's art or penmanship, but he doesn't get the chance. The man closes the journal like he's playing a castanet, spine in one broad hand, five fingers obscuring the book's cover. Six, counting the thumb.

"Huh," says Dirk.

The man's face darkens, and he quickly tucks the journal into the inside pocket of his coat, obscuring his hands as he does so. Dirk, face blank and eyes behind shades, tries not to show that he's fumbling for something to say. Something that isn't "Nice hands," since clearly that's not something this guy wants to hear.

Dirk looks at the coat, instead, and the holster, and the post-apocalyptic _"The Goonies_ meets _The Matrix"_ look this guy is dishing up. The pause goes on for longer than Dirk means it to, but surprisingly, the stranger keeps the conversation going.

"It's been a long time," he says, "since I've seen another human being."

"Oh yeah?" Dirk tilts his head, and rests his elbows on the bar. "Well, take your time. Soak it in. Wanna talk about breathing oxygen and having two legs? I'm your man."

The man's shoulders are up by his ears with tension, but Dirk mostly notices that they're broad, that he looks strong. When the man stands, suddenly, from the bar, Dirk watches him move. He moves like he's in the middle of a sparring match, and his expression continues along the theme. It makes Dirk's blood buzz in a way that has nothing to do with his extradimensional gin and tonic.

"It's too loud in here," says the man. "I'm heading out for some air. Are you coming?"

Dirk blinks, eyebrows way up. "Oh."

Dirk  _ knows _ Dirk. He knows that he's not the most seductive guy in the multiverse. But maybe the banter about being human worked better than he thought it would. Maybe he'd been speaking in sexy code. Whatever the reason, he's not complaining, and he stands, too.

"Yeah, man, sure. Could I get a name, though? Your name, if possible."

The man turns from the bar and walks up the slow, curved incline toward the exit, his trench coat whipping behind him like a cape. "Ford," he says. "What do you want me to call you?"

A few jokes instantly spring to mind, but Dirk wants to wait until he can see Ford's face to tell them. "Strider," he says instead. "Dirk Strider."

Dirk follows Ford through the crowd. Ford moves like a shadow, pace even and confident as he ascends away from the luminous hive. The character Dirk is playing would rush ahead, bump their shoulders together, put a hand on Ford's hip—but as they leave together, Dirk finds himself wanting to drop the act, a little. He wasn't expecting to find someone interesting, tonight. Something about Ford's intensity is magnetic, and he follows him out onto the street and down a side alley without a second thought. He's had half a drink; there's no blaming it on the alcohol.

The air is cold, outside of the crush of bodies. The light fades from vibrant to grey and dim. Ford half-turns to face him, shoulders still rigid. Dirk risks a smile, awkward but genuine, and studies the dark stubble on Ford's chin. In that small moment, Dirk's anticipating crossing "screwing in an alley with a handsome stranger" off his bucket list. (If an immortal god can have a bucket list.) He feels high on adrenaline, and sexy, and dangerous.

Ford moves first, pinning Dirk to a damp concrete wall, broad hand a fist in Dirk's shirtfront. The back of Dirk's head hits the wall, but not too hard, and the pain isn't really a turnoff—but the taser against his throat kind of is.

"Whoa there," Dirk manages, voice strange in his own ears.

"Show me your eyes," demands Ford. "Take those ridiculous spectacles off, Bill. Or are you one of his cronies?"

Dirk, wishing he felt slightly less turned on, clenches a fist at his side. He knows exactly where his sword is, and exactly how to kill Ford where he stands. He also knows that his legs are a little weak, because it's been a while since he's been manhandled. He could turn this into a fight, easily, and he would win. Does he want to?

"Ridiculous?" Dirk says instead. "It's called fashion, Ford."

Ford glares. "Take them off. Now."

Using his dominant hand, he does. His sword remains tucked in his sylladex, and he squints in the low light.

The taser crackles in Ford's hand, and Dirk can smell it, hot and staticky. The small hairs at the base of his neck stand on end, and Ford stares deep into his eyes, like he's trying to fuse their minds. Dirk opens his eyes wider, and bends a knee, knocking against the inside of Ford's thigh. The fist tugging at Dirk's shirtfront loosens, and Dirk can feel the broad palm against his collarbone. He knows that his heart is beating hard, and hopes that it reads as panic instead of—something more complicated. Something hotter, and constricting his throat.

"You're not Bill," says Ford, shocked.

"Nah," says Dirk. "He sounds like an asshole, though. Is he an asshole?"

"If you're not Bill," he continues, rightfully ignoring Dirk's attempt at levity, "why did you approach me? What did you hope to gain? What's your angle, Dirk Strider?"

_ Acute, _ Dirk thinks. He says, voice dry, "Why did I approach the hottie at the bar? You don't have a single guess?"

The effect is instantaneous. Ford's hand fumbles the grip on the taser, and the crackling stops. His eyebrows seem caught between raising and coming together, and he's literally slackjawed for a second. When he finally regains his footing, his face is red, so red that Dirk can easily see it in the low light.

"What?" says Ford. "I'm not—that's not—you saw my hands first thing!"

Dirk's eyes flicker down between them, but of course he can't see much other than Ford's face. "Your luxury models? I wasn't going to say anything, but. Yeah."

Ford pauses, and bites his lower lip, which, to be totally honest, is an unfair move. Dirk's central nervous system is still trying to decide whether to pump out the chemicals for fight or fuck.

"Your eyes," Ford starts, and Dirk puts his shades back on.

"Sensitive to light," Dirk finishes. "Since I was born. Thus, the fashionable shades."

In an extended series of slow movements, Ford backs up, disentangling them. Dirk remains against the dirty wall, happy for the support. It's cool through his thin white shirt, and helps to ground him. By contrast, nothing about Ford's expression or posture appears grounded.

Ford clears his throat, and places the taser in a holster on his belt. "Incredible. I've never met a human with eyes that color. It's not albinism, is it? It's something else."

Dirk finally pushes off the wall, and tugs at his shirt to make it sit right. He can't take his eyes off Ford. He worries that he'll blink, and this fascinating weirdo will disappear. "Not albinism," he agrees. "Genetics, sort of. Also, kind of a long story, and I can't buy you a drink out here."

Beyond all sense, Ford's posture tenses with surprise. Dirk knows that he's rusty, with picking up guys—as if he's ever not been rusty—but this seems a little much.

"A drink?" asks Ford. "Back at the—whatever that was?"

"Club," Dirk supplies. "Bar. The place where dancing happens."

"Dancing," mutters Ford. Then, something dawns on him. "You want to—even after I threatened you, you're interested in—getting to know me?"

This, too, is unfair. Dirk has tried to wish away the memories of his past attraction to Jake English, with mixed success. He figures that, his relationship with Jake being so formative, he will always have a thing for oblivious, violent, bespectacled nerds with self-esteem issues. It's bizarre that he would meet someone else like that—a new someone with whom he has no beef, carries no baggage. Trying not to read too much into it, and failing, Dirk says, "Hell yeah. Absolutely. Are you down?"

Ford considers for a moment, and Dirk tries not to look too invested in his reply. Thankfully, Ford nods, and Dirk can focus on pretending to be charming again.

"Sweet," says Dirk, and steps forward, into Ford's space. "Now, tell me, Ford—do you dance as well as you rough up dudes in alleys? Because if you do, I'm gonna swoon."

Ford can't cobble together a reply to this for a while. That's fine—it takes a while for them to find seats again, and order drinks. They sit across from each other at a small table that looks like a floating shelf on the wall. "This is  _ music?" _ says Ford, dismissive and haughty, and Dirk laughs.

The neon bugs dart along the walls, but Dirk barely notices. Ford's knee jiggles, and he holds his drink with both hands, like it might run away from him. "This feels like a dream," he admits. "I never imagined I would meet someone like you, least of all in a place like this."

Dirk leans forward on his elbows. "What am I like, that's got you so surprised?"

Ford stares into Dirk's eyes again, in the way that makes Dirk feel pinned in place. "Unique," says Ford. "Human, but—special. To travel between dimensions, just as I have, but at your age—?"

"Twenty-five," says Dirk. "If you're worried about robbing the cradle."

Ford doesn't seem to hear the last part. He leans forward as well, smiling. "Where did you come from? Tell me everything. Don't leave a single thing out."

Dirk tries not to feel flattered. Mostly he feels warm. "It's complicated," he warns. "And really stupid at parts, and not everyone likes how it ends."

"I'm not going anywhere," says Ford, and Dirk believes him.

So, as Dirk sips his second drink, he talks about it. He starts at the beginning.

"In the distant year of 2409," he says, spreading his fingers out on the table and leaning in, "a meteor falls to Earth. Aboard that meteor are two of the raddest babies the Universe will ever mix up out of stardust and angel shit." He stage-whispers behind his hand, face blank.  _ "One of 'em's me." _

"The future," says Ford, not particularly surprised. "I could have guessed that."

Dirk brings his hand back down, but the flat expression stays. "Yeah. Not a secret. Anyway. I was the last man on Earth, living above a post-global-warming ocean that used to be smack dab in the middle of Houston, Texas. I passed my time pissing off the government—alien government, the takeover had already happened—and plotting the downfall of Her Imperious Condescension." Dirk mimes having huge horns with his hands, and tosses an invisible mane of hair. "Fish lady from the future, and the past. Time stuff."

Ford's hand twitches, and Dirk wonders if he wants to be writing this down. He seems like the socially oblivious, note-taking type, and it's not just the nerd glasses that make Dirk think so. "You seem to be dealing with a lot of time stuff," Ford says.

"Was dealing, am dealing." Dirk gestures to him with his gin and tonic. "When are you from, Trenchcoat?"

"Just 'Ford' is fine," he says, and leans back, stroking his stubble. "I'm not sure how to answer that. I was born in 1953. I left my Earth dimension when I was thirty-two, and a few years have passed since then. Does that mean I'm from 1985, or 1988? Does time pass so linearly, in other dimensions? I haven't been able to prove that either way."

"That's fair." Dirk pushes the slice of lime into his drink, and stabs it with his straw. "That's—really fair, actually. I've spent some time in the outermost reaches of space, and it might have been 2011 at the time, but—you know?"

"I think so," says Ford. Dirk is sure he gets the gist, at least. "Go on."

"I built robots," says Dirk, and pauses.

Dirk is the product of disaster. His life, even with the do-overs and the multiple timelines, was never what he wanted. His role in SBURB was never that of the puppeteer; he was as vital to their success as a snorkel would be to an octopus. He was victorious, yes, but not due to his actions—it was all in spite of his inertia. His friends won the game. He was just... around, during.

He knows, in the millisecond that he pauses, that this story is not seductive. He also knows, in this millisecond, that picking up dudes at clubs does not require total, unedited honesty.

"Cool robots," Dirk continues. "Friends, to keep me company, and sparring partners, with wits and swords. I had human friends, too, eventually." Dirk's mouth screws up to the side, grimacing. "That sounded a lot sadder than I meant it to."

Ford has the decency to laugh, at least, and sips his drink. Dirk's still in control. He's, as the saying goes, got this.

"We didn't save the world. It ended. But that's the life cycle of Universes, in that dimension. When one ends, another is born, and a few folks're selected to play a capital-G Game to shape the new one. Ours was flawed—unwinnable—but there are ways around that." Dirk pulls his straw out of his drink, and chews on it. Ford's attention, previously on his shades, is now firmly on his mouth. Dirk's lips quirk in a small smile. "I have ways of getting what I want."

Ford ignores this obvious line to ask, "Is that why you're so familiar with transuniversal and multilinear time travel? You would have to be, to find a workaround in your situation."

Dirk returns the straw to his drink, a bit put out that Ford isn't so easily distracted. "I guess. It was never my domain. My class, my aspect in the Game—I'm the Prince of Heart."

"Class," he says, brow furrowed. "As in—are you saying your Universe was created in a high-stakes game of  _ Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?" _

Dirk doesn't understand the reference, but nods. "Yes. That."

Ford's brow furrows farther. "And you're some sort of— _ love god?" _

"I dunno, baby," says Dirk, and brings his shoulders up, pushing his nonexistent boobs together. "You tell me."

Ford makes a noise that isn't quite a laugh, but isn't quite a scoff, either. This is a win, in Dirk's book. He brings his shoulders back down and drinks, satisfied.

"That's ridiculous," Ford says, and catches himself. "In theory. In practice, nothing I've seen would indicate that you aren't telling the truth, or that your Universe operates in a way that is unique to your dimension. It could well be the future of my own world. I've never seen a fully-realized apocalypse—only ones that have just begun. I thought it best not to stick around for the finale."

Dirk hums. "Good call."

"That said, I do find it miraculous that you are here, of all places." Ford's eyes are alight with curiosity, and Dirk relishes being the subject of it. "In all of the multiverse, you're here, tonight. And you approached me, someone who is actively trying to save his own Universe from the sort of Armageddon that you've already thwarted. Or, if not thwarted, saw to a happier end. You're from the future," continues Ford. 

Dirk knows where this is going, and winces.

"Which means—is there a possibility that your future and my future are related? It would mean that the world is saved, that Bill never succeeds. Or are there too many possibilities, too many Earth- and Earth-like dimensional futures for what you say to impact my own life?"

"Dunno, Ford." Dirk leans back again, now, and considers Ford, loose tie to lantern jaw. "Tell me about him."

Ford's solid bulk seems to solidify further as he tenses, his body language screaming discomfort. He holds his drink with both hands, and frowns darkly down at it. "Bill Cipher. A demon from another dimension. A trickster god. Nothing like you," he adds. Dirk's stomach, which had started to clench, settles again.

"Nothing like me," Dirk agrees. He tries not to think of tricks he's pulled, or the people he's hurt. "What did he do? Or try to do?"

"Destroy the Universe." Ford looks off to the side, thinking back, idly watching a vibrant purple isopod trail along the wall. "Unleash chaos. He tricked me until building a portal that would bridge the barrier between our dimensions. Instead of letting him in, I was pushed out. And now," he says with a sigh, "I travel."

It sounds absolutely nothing like Dirk's spontaneous vacation. Ford's jacket collar is askew; it's increasingly likely that his stubble is due to different priorities, instead of aesthetics. He looks like an unmade bed because he's locked out from his home. Dirk's heart aches.

"I'm sorry," says Dirk. His voice is almost too soft to be heard over the music.

"I'm not sorry," Ford says. He looks up at Dirk, scowling. "I'm  _ furious. _ I'm going to find Bill Cipher, and I'm going to make sure he never succeeds in using that portal. Preferably by killing him." He takes a sip of his drink. "Painfully."

Dirk nudges his own glass toward Ford's, and clinks them together on the table. "Good luck, man. Kick his ass."

"I will," says Ford, practically shining with resolve. "He insinuated himself into my life, pretending to be my muse--an extradimensional being who chooses to foster the genius within one human in a generation. He was in my  _ mind,  _ Dirk. You can't imagine what it's like." His lip curls, and he looks the way he did in the alley, dark and frightening. "I couldn't sleep. I still can't, not restfully. I was alone, utterly alone, with a being that seemingly only existed to spit my darkest secrets back at me, and laugh."

Dirk swallows. His voice is hoarse when he says, "Maybe I can understand. A little."

Ford looks away again, and draws lines in the condensation on the table. "So you can see why I wanted good news from the future."

Dirk takes a long pull of ice cold booze, and chases the taste with his tongue. Ford's eyes lift again, and he watches Dirk's throat move.  Dirk tilts his head, intrigued. "There's a lot of bullshit floating around in space and time," answers Dirk. "But I'm here, and you're here. Our paths are connected, at least in this moment. Maybe expound on that, to make sure your evil ex doesn't destroy your reality."

Ford coughs into his drink, and amaretto drips onto his fingers. "My—no. That's—how can you think that?"

"Context clues," answers Dirk. Then, he continues: "I want to do shots."

"All right," says Ford, unbalanced again.

"With you," says Dirk.  _ Off your abs, _ he doesn't say. "I'll pay, if you tell me about where you've traveled. I think my story was longer and stupider than yours."

Ford smiles, obviously confused but not unsettled. Dirk observes their conversation on two very different levels: on one, Ford is fascinated by him for reasons Dirk doesn't yet understand. On the other, Ford is cut from stone and ticking boxes Dirk didn't even know he had, type-wise. Beyond what could reasonably be considered Jake's fault, even. Dirk hates stubble on himself, but can't imagine Ford without it; Dirk's used to being the tallest guy in the group, but Ford is six foot dreamy, and Dirk likes it an unnerving amount. Dirk is both in control and totally out of it, and the only way forward is to get drunk.

"Sure," says Ford. "Since you're paying."

They do shots chased with jet-black citrus slices, and Ford talks about a dimension made of glass. He explains how, in one city unmoored from time, he could roll particles of light between his fingers. He talks about an oracle, who told him a prophecy about who, exactly, could stop Bill.

"So," Dirk says, lining up their empty shot glasses. Their chairs have shifted, and he's leaning against Ford's side. "You were manipulated by a force outside of your control, and in response, you accepted responsibility for the fate of your entire reality."

"I got us into this mess," Ford says, meaning humanity and all existence. "I'll get us out of it."

Dirk has met himself before. He knows what his arrogance and aggressive independence looks like, from the outside. He didn't think he'd ever find those traits attractive in another person.

He brings a hand to Ford's thigh, and squeezes. He speaks into Ford's ear, and their cheeks brush. "I know you're from my relative past," he murmurs. Ford smells clean and masculine, his collared shirt slightly musty. "And I know you probably have a lot of internalized homophobia, and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

Ford huffs a laugh. "Are you drunk, Dirk?"

"I'm drunk. Also respectful," he corrects. Then, he moves his hand from Ford's thigh to his belt buckle, and tugs. "Also also, I want you to fuck me."

The lights of the club, both organic and otherwise, blur in Dirk's vision. The strong angles of Ford's face are almost too much—he looks like a comic book superhero, with that jawline and brow. He's off-balance, and searching for something to say, and Dirk did that, and that's  _ intoxicating. _ More so than the shots and the pounding music.

"Oh," says Ford, finally.

"You don't have to," Dirk says, hand still firmly on Ford's belt. "But I thought I should be direct, considering your continued surprise at my interest."

Ford laughs, and his thighs flex, as though he wants to squirm but doesn't want to dislodge Dirk's grip entirely. Dirk dips his head, and kisses Ford, right above his shirt's collar. Ford's pulse flutters against Dirk's lips, fast as a hummingbird's wings.

"Thank you," Ford breathes, "for—respecting my autonomy?"

Dirk hums, and gently nips at his jaw.

"So much of this is very new to me," continues Ford. Babbles Ford, really, and Dirk likes that, too. "It goes without saying that, what with my hands and my multitude of unusual interests, I haven't been subject to this sort of attention, very often."

"People are blind," mutters Dirk. "That's hardly news. So?"

Ford swallows, and Dirk can feel it against his mouth. Then, Ford gently pushes him away, so that yet again, they are staring into each other's faces. Dirk catalogues every silver hair in Ford's stubble, and tries not to think about how possessive he feels over this casual fling.

"Why?" Ford asks, seemingly still at a loss. "When you first approached me, I'd assumed you were trying to seduce some information out of me. Your reality is safe. What can I offer you?"

Dirk wants to climb into Ford's lap. He wants to climb into his ribs and curl around his heart and stay.

He says, "I don't want what you can do. I want you." He forces his eyes to focus on Ford's, instead of getting distracted by his mouth. "Don't read too much into it. I've made that mistake before. A lot."

Ford looks at Dirk with soft awe, and brings a hand to Dirk's cheek. "You're asking me to stop thinking," says Ford. "I've never been able to do that."

"Try," says Dirk. "Just for tonight."

They kiss, and it doesn't feel casual. It feels like taking a deep breath after being submerged. It's shockingly good, and Dirk feels like life is moving too fast, which almost never happens to him. He's the one making time go faster, racing it to the next important event so he can plot and scheme. Ford bumps their noses together, and Dirk wants to be annoyed, but he's too far gone.

One of Ford's hands rests on Dirk's shoulder, feather-light and hesitant. Dirk tugs on Ford's lapels, hauling him closer, bumping them against the table and jostling the empty glasses. Ford's mouth tenses in surprise, maybe afraid that they'll click teeth, but they're fine. Dirk's got him.

"I don't," gasps Ford. "I'm—this is very unusual for me."

"Same," says Dirk, voice low. He cups the back of Ford's head and moves forward to whisper in his ear. He can hear Ford's breath catch, and it makes his skin tingle. "It's too loud in here," he murmurs, fighting a smile. "I'm heading out for some air. Are you coming?"

Ford laughs, surprised again, and Dirk feels like the sexiest human alive. "I didn't sound like that," Ford says, almost a question. Dirk just raises an eyebrow at him, and tries to stop beaming with mixed results.

They stumble out of the club, both smiling like idiots, and Dirk tries to learn as much as he can about Ford in the time it takes to get him in bed. He needs more data, some reason why this is so easy, beyond all the coincidental similarities of their lives. This instant attraction feels unreal—it doesn't just happen to people, not normal people outside of cheesy romcoms. Not to people like them.

"Tell me a secret," demands Dirk, bold enough now to keep a hand on Ford's hip. At some point, the part he was playing simply became himself, but more so.

"A secret?" The street is dark and slightly damp, and they are the shortest bipeds by far. They cut through the crowds easily, like stepping between trees in a forest. "You already know everything I've had to keep secret. My research, my muse, my journey home." He says this with a voice so gentle, Dirk can't look at him.

"You're a man of mystery," says Dirk, and Ford hums a happy note. "You  _ are. _ You're like Scully and Mulder had a baby and the baby was… also Mulder."

Ford laughs, but admits, "I don't follow the reference."

"It's stupid." Dirk pauses, considering the intersection before him. Where would a hotel be? "Well, not actually. It's a great show. Are you stalling, or can you really not think of anything?"

"Dirk," he says, voice too gentle again. Dirk has to look, even though the terrified part of him doesn't want to.

His fears are justified. Ford's smile is soft, and he's looking at Dirk with an expression that shouldn't be possible, after only a few hours. Dirk doesn't understand this. He doesn't like not understanding it, but he doesn't want to pause things long enough to dissect things and categorize them.

"I've never felt this way about anyone," says Ford. "So suddenly. You're—impossible."

Dirk shivers at Ford's tone, and then laughs, slightly manic. "I've heard that one before."

"You don't understand," he insists, and takes Dirk's hands in his. Dirk feels like he's running a fever. "I've always had secrets, because people can't handle the truth. I thought no one could, other than me. And you—you already know about transuniversal and polydimensional travel, and demons, and gods, and—"

"Kiss me," says Dirk. It slips out, without permission from his brain.

"And that!" Ford squeezes Dirk's hands. "Your—you're so clear about your wants and needs, why can't everyone be like that?"

"Ford," Dirk says, voice lower. "Kiss me."

They kiss, under an alien street lamp made from a glowing chunk of tourmaline. Dirk brings his arms under Ford's trench coat and clutches at his back, warm even though the layers of his clothing. At least Ford is shocked, too. When this breaks bad, they'll both be blindsided.

Hotels have a look about them, same as clubs—so long as the resident population has corporeal forms and aren't just energy or clouds or junk like that. Dirk finds a building with a big entrance that doesn't seem to be selling anything. The doors open at their approach, and Dirk flashes a card that's connected to Dave's infinite supply of currency. It's got a picture of stairs on it, to remind Dirk to keep his guard up and stay safe.

Ford watches the transaction, still slightly entangled with Dirk, and frowns in concentration. "How could credit possibly work transuniversally? What bank do you use? What currency do they accept, here? I didn't think to follow you to the bar when you closed our tab."

Dirk, fond and amused, bumps hips with Ford and winks. "The money they accept is money. Basically, boonbucks have become the base standard currency of lots of universes, if you think of 'base currency' as 'philosophically, the image and shape of currency everywhere'. You're an economist, too?"

"Not even close," says Ford. "I'm just broke. I can't access my grant money, this side of the portal."

This is one of those moments where being a god can get a bit tricky. They take an elevator up to their room, avoiding stairs entirely, and Dirk struggles with what he can offer. Well, what he can offer is easy—everything, all the money Ford could ever want, security and protection and understanding—but what he should offer is different. What he should offer, frankly, is nothing. Ford might be a soulmate, but he's also still a stranger.

The elevator doors open, and Dirk takes Ford's hand, pulling him down the hall to their room. "You're an electrical engineer," says Dirk. "A scientist. An architect. You don't have to speak fluent Klingon to get a job from an alien."

"Why would they trust me?" Ford laces their fingers together, and it's odd, as well as wonderful.

Dirk stops in front of the correct door and waives a keycard in front of the scanner. The lock turns, and he pushes the door open. The lights fade on slowly, and Dirk notes the slate grey carpet and pink sheets before he turns back to Ford.

"You want to know a secret?" Dirk says, voice hoarse. "I trust you. I don't know why. I don't trust people, and I literally just met you, and I'm not even that drunk, but I trust you." He swallows, throat constricted, pulse racing with adrenaline. "So just—shove someone else against a wall, and maybe they'll be so charmed, that—"

"I'm sorry," Ford bursts out, gripping Dirk by his biceps. "Dirk, I'm sorry I did that."

"I'm not." Dirk puts his hands on Ford's elbows, willing them to bend, to bring him closer. "You looked so good, holding a taser to my neck. Don't apologize for that."

They come together, and they kiss, exploratory. Dirk tugs at Ford's clothes until he takes them off, and Ford brushes his hands along Dirk's bare arms until Dirk can't stand it and tears off his own shirt. They fall silent as they look at each other—at least, at first. When Ford tilts his head and Dirk spots the tattoo, Dirk groans like he's being tortured. Which he kind of is.

"You're so  _ good," _ he says into Ford's mouth, sounding almost angry. "You're  _ too _ good, it makes no  _ sense." _

Ford's hands are on Dirk's waist, and their difference in size makes Dirk think Ford could effortlessly pick him up and throw him off the bed. He hopes Ford doesn't, but also enjoys thinking about it, in a way he can't yet explain to himself.

They talk all the way through it, from direct questions to sub-vocal ones. Dirk wants to know what makes Ford feel good, and Ford wants to know how to do everything, in minute detail. If there's any hesitation, Dirk doesn't notice it; until Dirk takes Ford's hand and brings it to his mouth, there's no pausing at all.

There's just Ford, naked and staring at him, disbelief and hunger plain on his face. Dirk kisses Ford's knuckles, the pulse at his wrist—he takes a finger into his mouth, and sucks. Ford brings his free hand to Dirk's hair, pushing it out of his eyes. They stare at each other, their heavy breaths the only sound.

"You're perfect," says Ford, certain. Like it's objective, something Dirk has proven somehow.

Dirk wants to say it back. He wants to say a lot of things he shouldn't. He holds the hand in his hair in place, wordlessly urging Ford to pull.

Ford says it again—"perfect"—and it's an accusation. Dirk knows exactly how he feels.

When they're exhausted and curled around each other, Dirk makes no move to check the time. He knows how this is going to go, and he's in no hurry to get it started.

"We should travel together," says Ford, eyes closed, mouth bruised from kissing. "You could show me how you travel, and I could teach you my methods. We could go anywhere."

Dirk hums, head pillowed on Ford's chest. His eyes are wide open, memorizing everything.

"There are still so many things I have yet to study. I'm sure you've seen a thousand of them—you could tell me where they are, and we could uncover their mysteries together."

He doesn't want to say it. He knows that, technically, he doesn't have to—that the moment he falls asleep, the invisible anchor tethering him to the world he created will start to get heavier, and he'll wake up, safe and secure, in his bed instead of this one. That dream bubbles and extradimensional travelers get all mixed up, sometimes, and while Ford is real, and Dirk wants him, he won't be easy to locate a second time. If he keeps travelling as he means to, he will be borderline impossible to find.

When Dirk comes back from his miserable reverie, Ford has stopped stroking his back. "Dirk?"

"I want to," Dirk says, leading with the good news. "I do. But that's not how my kind of travel works. Once I drift off, I'm gonna drift off home. Not my call."

Ford mulls this over. "I see."

"And before you ask, if you were going to ask—if I could change how it works, I don't know if…" He sighs, and drums his fingers on Ford's chest. "I'd rather take you with me, honestly. But you don't want that."

It's barely a question, but Ford answers it anyway. "I couldn't."

"We've both got homes full of people and responsibilities," says Dirk. "And this is… you know."

Ford kisses the top of Dirk's head, and Dirk's grateful he can't see his face. "This is very nice. And surprising."

Ford doesn't sound surprised. Not about this ending, at least. Dirk understands that uncomfortably well—the feeling that's almost like relief, when something impossibly good has a downside. It makes everything feel more real. Maybe that's Dirk's depression talking; he can't tell. He's happy that Ford isn't obviously devastated, at least. That they aren't arguing.

Dirk hums in agreement, about this being nice. "I really didn't expect to pull tonight."

Something about that makes Ford laugh, and Dirk feels it against his cheek. It's something he plans to remember forever.

A minute passes, just quiet breathing and settling in to sleep. Dirk is comfortable, and feels the tension falling away from his shoulders. Sleep rarely comes this easily to him; it figures that it would be an easy thing to do, when he doesn't actually want to.

He blinks his eyes open. Ford's breathing is evening out, even as Dirk's pulse begins to pick up. He doesn't want this to end. He doesn't want to sleep.

He doesn't actually  _ have _ to sleep.

"Ford," he whispers. "Hey."

Ford mutters nonsense, before asking, "Mm?"

"Weird question." Dirk props himself up on his elbows, and looks down at Ford. Ford's eyes are closed, and he's got a thin line between his eyebrows--too gentle to be a frown. "You don't regret this, right? You don't want me to go away?"

Ford opens one eye, and his frown intensifies. "Don't be ridiculous."

Dirk smiles, and kisses Ford on the forehead, right where his frown lines are deepest. "Sleep well. I'll be here in the morning."

Ford's face smoothes with pleasure, and then, shortly, with peace. Dirk watches him drift, and then wonders whether or not the dimensional locals have coffee shops open this late.


	2. Love Is a Stranger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for the kind comments and kudos!

Dirk ends up taking a four-hour-long shower. He keeps the water on the cold end of tepid, so as not to encourage drifting off. He gets out when he can definitively tell his headache is from a hangover, instead of lack of sleep.

He feels fine, in an inside-out sort of way. The parts of him that ached a few days ago were internal—his head with boredom, his heart with loneliness. Now, those parts were full, and his skull and back are the ones complaining. He feels that he's made the best possible trade.

Ford is still resting, arm looped around a pillow instead of Dirk's shoulders. The light is not so bright as to be the light of morning. The "view" outside of the window is of the next building a few feet over, black bricks and grey cement; the light that trickles in is not warm. Ford is naked, the blankets carelessly arranged, one foot under the sheets and the other out for perfect temperature regulation. Dirk stares, again. He keeps being surprised to see Ford there.

Well, not surprised. Dirk isn't a goldfish, and Ford hasn't moved other than to shift and sigh in his sleep. But, still. There he is.

Dirk leaves the room to get a can of something with lightning bolts on the label. He takes the elevator down, and the white noise of it scrapes against his nerves.

The streets are still asleep, more or less. Someone somewhere has made sure the garbage gets collected, in this part of town. The vehicles used to pick up the trash bins look like huge armored beetles. Dirk looks closer at the passenger side window of one, and it blinks back at him.

Nix the "look like." Those're bugs.

He finds a convenience store, and asks for whatever the lady behind the counter uses to get up this early. She sells him caffeinated chewing gum and two slim cans of heart accelerant. He cracks one can as he exits the store. It tastes like gritty Mountain Dew, and he winces.

This world spins quickly. By the time Dirk is back at the hotel, morning has started with the abruptness of hitting a light switch. The sudden brightness makes him thankful yet again for his shades-on-at-all-times policy.

Before he enters their room, he thinks about Ford's taser. He smiles at the memory, but he also decides to knock.

To Ford's credit, a normal person wouldn't have heard him move. Dirk steps back from the door, tracking the muted footfalls on the other side as Ford slinks to grab a weapon and check who is there. The tiny lens of the peephole goes from yellow to black as Ford blocks the light. Dirk raises his energy drink and smirks.

"It's you!" Ford said, muffled by the door. Then, he opened it, naked torso out for the world to see. "It's you. Good morning."

"Morning," agrees Dirk, and moves to enter. Ford scans the hallway, making sure Dirk wasn't followed, before closing it and turning the lock.

Dirk turns to corner Ford against the door, and puts his drink down on a side table. He brings his hand to Ford's chin, and scratches gently at his stubble. Ford jumps, just a bit, at his cold fingers.

"I found some cool bugs," says Dirk, voice low and sultry.

Ford raises an eyebrow, and reaches out to touch Dirk's glasses, pulling them off his face. "Is this supposed to be dirty talk?" He asks, sounding genuinely interested. "Or did you actually find cool bugs?"

"Yes," answers Dirk, and kisses him.

Eventually, Ford has to put clothes on. Dirk vows to find a dimension where clothes were never invented, and where Ford's insistence on wearing pants would be seen as cruel and perverse. Ford seems to ignore him, but he does take a suspiciously long time to put on a shirt.

Dirk does show Ford the cool bugs. Ford sketches them, and Dirk asks nicely about looking at his journal. Ford uses both hands to pin the pages exactly in place, so Dirk can't flip through at his leisure—as if Dirk would, as if Dirk wants to do anything Ford doesn't want him to do. The garbage truck bug is in the center of a page, surrounded by traced paths of the bugs from the club last night. The overall effect is creepy and crawly, but scientifically accurate.

Continuing with the insect theme, at about lunchtime, Ford gets antsy.

"I hadn't expected to be in such a populated area for so long," he says, and turns into another side street. "I need to restock my provisions, and then get to higher ground."

Dirk nods, and sticks in hands in his pockets. He has no bag, and his wallet is a thin scrap of leather, holding a fake ID, a Juice Appeal coupon, and his Dave Strider-issued debit card. "Provisions," he repeats. "Like, what, canned beans? Canned fish?"

Ford snorts and shakes his head. "I'm not riding the rails, Dirk. I'm in hiding."

"Gotcha." Dirk doesn't, really. He isn't sure how to provide assistance without having food Captcha cards on hand.

Shopping for supplies when you are running from a powerful two-dimensional being of pure chaos turns out to be a lot like a normal grocery run. Ford has no money, and Dirk is pretty convinced that, if he weren't around, Ford would just straight up steal this stuff. He doesn't mind paying; it makes their trip out of town less of a hassle. Plus, because it's on his dime, he can buy Ford a commemorative very ugly magnet, and Ford can't do shit about it.

"What is this even supposed to be?" Ford asks, testing the appendages—limbs?—to see if they bend. They do, but only slightly. Ford stops fiddling with it before it snaps into bits. The actual magnet part on the back is circular, and makes the thorax of the thing look oddly flattened.

"A token of my esteem," says Dirk. "Other than that, no idea."

Ford puts it in his backpack, smiling. Dirk's smiling, too. He's gone without sleep so many times that this could be any other perfect morning.

The road turns from pavement to dirt, and they munch on some of the more perishable things they bought. Ford peels the rind off of a purple fruit, and Dirk watches his fingers work, the sixth ones just as dexterous as the other five. Every once in a while, he feels like his mind is playing tricks on him. Ford catches him staring, and his smile becomes more of a wince.

"They're weird, I know," he says.

Dirk instantly hates the hesitance in his voice. He wasn't staring because he was put off. He has yet to be put off about anything Ford does or is, which is fairly remarkable. Phrased another way, he keeps waiting for Ford to do or be something off-putting, but it keeps not happening.

"Just waiting to cut in," Dirk says. "It's hard to hold your hand, when you're doing that."

He's testing the waters, a little. They kissed this morning, but last night was on another level entirely. In the light of day, Ford flusters less. He doesn't fumble the extradimensional orange at all. Instead, he tosses the rind off the side of the road, and gives Dirk a piece.

"Patience is a virtue," he says. The tension is his voice is gone, and Dirk is satisfied.

The road gets steeper, and Ford pulls ahead, apparently looking for something in particular. Dirk follows along, watching. Ford picks up a good walking stick and tests the ground, poking places that look entirely unremarkable to Dirk. Occasionally, he hums.

"The idea of a 'food web' seems so basic," says Ford, "and yet it is an apt visual for the way nature operates. The exchange of energy is so direct that many people forget to ask the bigger questions: from where is this energy, originally? Is any of it lost in the transfer? Can anything, truly, be destroyed?"

Dirk, Prince of Heart and Destroyer of Souls, shrugs a shoulder. "What are you looking for?" He asks, because it seems like the pertinent question.

Ford looks over his shoulder and smiles, fierce and confident. "Energy. The source. Back in town, insects are harnessed and trained. But it's impossible to imagine that insects that size developed without using some form of external energy. Is it food? Or is it, given their cold blood, some hidden heat source? The hive of the smaller, luminescent ones was so benign as to be a dance hall. I'm looking for the hive of the bigger ones. I want to know what they use, to grow so large and remain mobile and comfortable."

"That's why you're poking at the ground," says Dirk.

Ford nods, and overturns a rock. Beneath it, a pillbug shudders, and zips beneath the soil. "The biodiversity of this forest is promising," he says. "The fungal growth alone suggests a damp, fruitful environment, perfect for insects."

"Ballin'," says Dirk. He considers picking up a stick of his own, but imagines the coarse, moist texture, and puts his hands in his pockets. "So, you find the energy source. Then what?"

Ford's smile remains, as does his confident strides up the hill. "I take it," he announces ahead of them. "That is, if it's small enough for me to take. I need to find something powerful enough that, if harnessed appropriately, could punch a hole into chaos itself."

As they complete their ascent, Ford describes Bill. If Bill were matter, Ford would simply create an antimatter weapon—something which, he assures Dirk, is almost easier done than said. But Bill is not matter, in the way that humans understand it; Bill is a conscious being, yes, but only exists in non-material dimensions, such as those of thoughts and dreams. In order to destroy him, Ford must find the opposite of nothing. He posits that this requires an energy source.

"Part philosophy, part poetry," says Dirk, lips quirking up.

Ford scoffs. "I'm no poet," he says. "I'm simply a man on a mission of ultimate revenge."

This sounds lyrical enough to Dirk, but he doesn't feel like being contradictory. Ford looks dashing, hair tousled by the wind. Dirk is happy simply to watch him, and to accompany him on his ascent.

Ford finds a few promising bogs of soft earth, and they turn, circling the top of the hill. Dirk looks out over where they have been. What isn't blocked by trees is an immense cityscape, but nothing like a city Dirk has seen before. Any change in elevation immediately reverts to forest; there are no buildings on the slightest incline. It makes it look like there are two landscapes superimposed over each other, with one being urban and the other being untouched woodland.

Dirk stops to look at the view. He hears the crunching of Ford's bootfalls stop, and, after a moment, looks toward him.

Ford was a scientist, once. It isn't something that he's abandoned, at least not intentionally. He still studies what he sees, and makes calculated hypotheses about the world around him. However, Dirk has only ever seen him like this: bold, intense, focused entirely on killing the being who wronged him. Dirk wonders if he could transport Ford home. He knows, without asking, that Ford would refuse until he was victorious against Bill.

Dirk wishes that his heart had an objective viewpoint. He wishes he had a frame of reference that was "right," where he didn't have to worry he was feeling things wrong, or too fast. Mostly, he wishes he could tell Ford how he looks, windswept and determined, looking out over the city.

Ford looks from the city to Dirk, equally intense, and says, "Come on. A bit further this way."

Dirk nods, and wonders how far he's willing to go with Ford, when all is said and done.

Ford continues his lecture, about how insects beyond a certain size and weight would collapse on themselves. How exoskeletons made out of natural materials simply can't support a being the size of a truck. If, somehow, these insects are made of a new material that could hack the weight and mass differential, that, too, is good news. Anything could be armor, anything could be a weapon.

Mostly, Dirk is listening. Dirk is quiet, and responds where appropriate. He falls into an old habit: being, mentally, in two places at once.

This isn't his shower at home, so he does have to be present enough to avoid tripping. He passively sees Ford pull out a flick knife and take a sample of bark from a tree, stowing it away into a pouch on his belt. He's told Dirk that he's never been in this forest before, and has much to learn from it. Still, he walks with pride, certain in everything he does. Must be nice, feeling that way.

Last night, Ford said he liked Dirk's directness. Dirk likes to think of himself as a fairly no-bullshit guy from other people, but knows that he himself runs on bullshit. He wants to live up to Ford's expectations, though.

"Imagine an insect the size of a person," continues Ford.

"Don't have to," says Dirk. "Did I never mention the Carapacians?"

Dirk describes them—how they look, how they move—and it's a matter of moments before Ford is taking notes. Dirk watches his hands move, and thinks about how they felt holding him.

Hookups aren't like this, Dirk knows. Even in his very limited experience, he knows that you're supposed to be polite the next morning, but not stick around. Ask for a phone number or chumhandle if you want, but don't expect anything. The polite, adult thing to do is to be respectful, and make yourself scarce. Accompanying someone the very next morning on the road to their life's ambition seems like a misstep, but he doesn't want to go. Even as his shoulders start to ache and his eyes feel hot, he doesn't want to sleep and go home.

Ford looks up only to avoid rocks and tree roots, and soon has something like a police profile sketch of the Mayor. Roxy was neighbors with them for years, so Dirk can answer a lot of questions about their diet and social habits. They seemed to be able to move around fine, regardless of their big size.

"Red-blooded," Dirk mentions.

Ford blinks at him. "I had assumed so," he says. "Should I not have?"

Dirk's pace never falters, but his brain has a moment of freefall, wondering what that perspective is like. Dirk makes a point not to care about blood, but he can't not notice it. "I guess not," he says. "But if—"

The ground shifts beneath them. At first, it feels like an earthquake, and then, a sinkhole opens up. The dirt, moist and loose, shapes itself into a whirlpool, and a boulder to Ford's left begins to be swallowed up. Ford closes his journal, and takes a step back. Dirk does the same, his heart racing in a way that feels like an overreaction.

"Just as I suspected!" Ford puts the cap on his fountain pen and tucks it away. "The root system of the trees must help the hill keep its shape, but it's hollow." He turns to Dirk, smile wide. "It's a hive, Dirk! The entire hill is a massive hive, just like the one were we met."

Dirk swallows, trying to find his voice. There's a weird ringing in his ears, which could be from anything—lack of sleep, a rush of adrenaline—but is oddly timed. "Okay," he manages. "What's our next move?"

"Next," he says, teeth white and perfect, "we descend."

This is fear, thinks Dirk. What I'm feeling is fear.

Ford pulls his pack from his back to his side, and digs out a grappling hook. He shoots it at a tree branch and tests its hold. The branch doesn't so much as shudder, and Ford nods, satisfied. "This should be long enough to get us to the first level," he says.

"How," Dirk asks, "could you possibly know that?"

Ford brings an arm around Dirk's waist, pulling him close. Dirk's arms wrap around Ford's broad shoulders, and the solid warmth of him does nothing to slow the rhythm of Dirk's heart. That smile, unhinged and delighted, is aimed first at the hole leading who-knows-where, and then right at Dirk.

"I'm a scientist," says Ford. "It's an educated guess."

Dirk tightens his hold, chin on Ford's shoulder. "This is stupid—"

"Here we go!"

The sound of a hundred thousand exoskeletons rustling is very similar to that of rushing water. It's warm, down there, and humid; the clicking of chitin bounces off of every surface, so that Dirk instantly feels submerged. Beyond the entrance in the ceiling, there is no light. They descend, and the circle of daytime seems to constrict just as Dirk's pupil's blow out.

Ford laughs, and Dirk can feel it, feel the hum of his breath and the pounding of his heart as clearly as his own. Ford's knees bend, and Dirk mirrors him automatically—when his feet connect with the ground, he's caught off-guard, and Ford alone keeps him steady. The soil under Dirk's shoes is damp and soft, and nothing about this feels real.

"Heat," says Ford. Dirk cannot see him, but can imagine his face, smiling into the unknowable darkness. "I knew it."

Dirk steps back, but keeps his hands on Ford's shoulders. He kind of wants to shake him. "How?" He blinks rapidly, his eyes struggling to adjust. "You aren't an entomologist. Definitely not a bigass-spacebug-ologist. Which of your twelve PhDs covered extradimensional hivecrashing?"

He hears Ford rustle in his bag again. There's a crack of plastic, and Ford's hands and face are illuminated by a thin, red glowstick. "Nothing so specific," he says.

Ford holds out the glowstick to examine the wall. The wall, a convex curve with irregular stripes, moves. It flutters its wings, and almost knocks the light out of Ford's hand. He pulls it back, holding it between him and Dirk.

"This isn't the first habitat I've observed from the inside, if that's what you're asking," he says. If the giant insect on the wall surprised him, his voice does not show it.

Dirk's heart rate surges again, and his brain supplies a dozen different animals, conjuring them against the darkness. Bears with a dozen heads, a scorpion with the face of a clown, the concept of infinity with a lion's tail—it could have been anything. Dirk could ask, but what if it's worse than he thinks? What if the only mortal man he likes is more reckless than most of the immortal people he knows?

Ford's glasses obscure his eyes, and he holds the light at the level of his chest. Only the lower half of his face is visible, and Dirk stares at his strong jaw and pleased, expectant smile. They could be having a sleepover, and Ford could be telling a ghost story.

I'm afraid for him, realizes Dirk.

"If you're trying to impress me," Dirk starts. He's interrupted by the floor shifting again, and Ford scooping him off of the ground.

They swing like a pendulum as they continue to descend. Dirk considers what they will do once they run out of rope. He doesn't have long to consider, however, before he is deafened by the rush of wings.

Giant beetles, it seems, aren't so quick on the uptake. Once an intruder has made it past their defenses, they don't mind the intruder wandering around. Enemies at the gate are attacked at the gate. If an enemy isn't at the gate, is it really an enemy? The evidence would have to be pretty compelling to label a being inside the hive as bad news.

Ford and Dirk learn, over the next few seconds, that making strange noise and giving off light are two great ways to present as enemies to beetles. Even to beetles as slow as molasses, like these ones.

They find a place to land before they're knocked out of the air, and Ford pulls a gun from his shoulder holster. The first shot is like a bolt of lightning, the muzzle flash catching on a dozen glossy shells and horns. Dirk summons his sword into his hands with a hurried, contrived rhyme, and immediately thwacks a beetle in the face with it, daring it to come closer.

Ford is at Dirk's back, one hand still on the grappling hook, their one near-literal life line. "We need to go deeper!"

Dirk is caught between calling him crazy and making a "that's what she said" joke. He does neither, instead grunting with pain when a beetle's wing catches him in the face. His jaw clicks shut, and he bites his lip, blood bright and shocking on his tongue.

"They're moving so quickly," continues Ford. "I need to know what they built their hive around!"

Dirk catches a beetle's eye with his pommel, and it skitters back. "Open to ideas," he says.

"I'm letting go of the rope," says Ford. "We need to—"

Dirk turns around. He is facing Ford's back, and Ford is merely an outline against the next muzzle flash. Dirk's back is to the beetles, and he can feel them wherever he cannot see them. Their bodies are hot, almost burning to the touch. He knows, then, that they are not trying to ram them or stab them with their horns. They are trying to cook them alive.

"Don't you fucking dare let go," says Dirk, and reaches for the glowstick.

"We need more distance," Ford argues, and then steps back into Dirk, confused. "What are you doing?"

"Hold on," says Dirk, and pulls the red light out of Ford's hand. "Pull us up."

"What—"

"Ford!" Dirk clings to his back, and holds the glowstick just over Ford's heart. "For fuck's sake, do it!"

The floor falls away, and Dirk doesn't know if they are rising or falling. It's dark all around him, and wind is rushing along his back, cooling the light burns. So complete is the darkness that it takes Dirk a moment to realize that his eyes are closed. He forces them open. Then, he drops the glowstick.

It falls. It falls, and falls, and falls, and there isn't enough rope in a dozen grappling hooks to reach where it lands. The distant floor is one huge, multicolored chrysalis, a stained glass window the size of a town. It absorbs the glowstick, and writhes—

When Ford and Dirk surface again, they leave the grappling hook secured to the tree. They run.

 

-

 

"I don't know what sort of scientific method you studied at your fancypants college, Doctor Pines, but that was a fucking abysmal experiment."

"Hmm."

"Here's Science 101. First off, you have your observation. That could take a while." Dirk hears the volume of his voice rise, and swallows. He continues, and he doesn't shout, even though he really wants to. "That could take weeks. There's no rushing good science, that's what I always say. I have it embroidered on a pillow."

"Mm-hmm."

"I learned to embroider over the course of a lot of observation. Learning how to do that took longer than a day and a half. Just as a random example. I had to do a lot of measuring and calculation, to make sure my design would fit on the fabric. And hey, perfect segue, because you know what comes after observation? Measurement."

Ford threads his fingers through Dirk's hair, and pulls out a leaf. "Right."

"What are the variables? That's what you have to think about. For my pillow, I had to measure the dimensions of my design, the size of the stitches, the length of the embroidery thread I had on hand. Turns out I didn't have enough pink. That delayed the experiment by several days. This is before I had Amazon Prime—not a paid sponsor of this lecture, but anecdotal information to help me paint a picture, here."

"Dirk," says Ford, "Are you planning on letting me stand up any time soon?"

Dirk, lying on top of Ford and pinning Ford's arms to his sides with an embrace, wills himself to be heavier.

"Interesting question," says Dirk. "I have observed you doing dumb shit, when you are standing up. Over the course of my observation, when you are horizontal, you are less likely to risk your life trying to find bug power-ups at the bottom of a hell pit. I'm going to need more time before I measure the statistical likelihood of you going off and doing stupid, dangerous stuff, but I warn you—numbers-wise, it ain't looking good."

Dirk has also observed that he, himself, is the pinnacle of patience. He waited until the camp was set up, bedroll laid out and fire lit, before pinning Ford to the ground. Now, Ford can do nothing but listen to Dirk's very good and important advice about how not to die. That is the hypothesis.

Ford is as full of surprises as ever, and chooses not to listen at all. "I'm hungry," he says.

"Oh, well, if you're hungry," says Dirk. His arms loosen, just a bit. Ford wiggles free, and Dirk rolls over onto his back. It's late afternoon, and Dirk is closing in on forty-eight hours without sleep. Lying down, with the cool earth on his burned back, is bliss. He stares at the treetops, and they blur, but he does not close his eyes for fear of relaxing too far.

Ford putters around the fire. Dirk can hear him rustling in his pack, pulling out ingredients. "Nevermind all that," Ford says, brushing aside a good thirty minutes of Dirk's hard work. "You surprised me, back there. You're a very competent swordsman, Dirk."

Dirk turns his head to look at Ford, the better to raise an eyebrow at him. "Thanks. I try."

"Where did you learn?" Ford uses a small knife to strip some sticks of their dirty bark, before impaling hunks of vegetable and meat on them as rustic kebabs. "Given what you've told me of your isolation, I wasn't expecting that."

"I'm also a competent roboticist," says Dirk, letting Ford hear in his tone just what he thinks of the adjective. "I built sparring partners, for both my verbal and asskicking development. Remember? I knew that I was going to have to fight—my world ended before I was born, but the war for my dimension really kicked off when I was sixteen. I was preparing for that for my whole life. Plus, swords run in the family."

A shadow falls across Ford's face at Dirk's last statement. "How so?"

Dirk blinks, wheels turning sluggishly. "Wait. Hold on. Did you drop me into bugworld thinking that I didn't know how to fight? That's terrible. That sucks, Ford."

"Of course you know how to fight," says Ford, flapping a hand dismissively. "You move like a martial artist, and I've seen how quick you can be, when you put your mind to it. You're strong."

Dirk rolls onto his stomach and brings his hands to his chin. He smiles at Ford. "Tell me I'm built."

"I wouldn't have brought you with me if I had thought you couldn't hack it," says Ford, ignoring him. "You had mentioned fighting before. I was simply surprised at your choice in weapon."

"Tell me I'm buff and stuff," says Dirk. "I punched a bug in the face for you. You owe me this."

"And—tell me if I'm incorrect, but was our escape entirely due to my grappling hook, or do you also possess the power of flight?"

"'Oh, Strider, you're so fine. You're so fine, you blow my mind.' Now, you go."

Ford rolls his eyes, but can't hide his smile. Dirk is glad that his exhausted ramblings are amusing, at least. As daylight fades, he worries that these are their last few hours together.

Dirk has been awake for longer than this. He knows what his absolute maximum feels like, which makes it difficult to go back there. He remembers shaking, and being unable to stop. He remembers phasing through things, and attacking things that only he could see. True exhaustion, when one can be in multiple dimensions at once, is a little like being on bad salvia. He can't protect anyone, in that state, let alone himself. Definitely not Ford.

They eat meat and veggies as the sky goes dark. At sunset, the canopy is black against the pastel clouds. Dirk watches Ford eat, and thinks about their ascent up the side of the hive, watching Ford peel the rind off of a fruit. He tries to memorize their surroundings, and the way Ford sits, posture perfect but collar rumpled. When Dirk reaches out to fix the collar, fiddling with it until it lays flat, Ford doesn't shy away. Ford doesn't shy away from anything, even when he should.

"Hey," says Dirk. "Hey, Ford."

Ford swallows, and licks his fingers. "Hmm?"

Dirk doesn't know how to phrase it correctly, but time is running out, so he gives up and is brutally honest, instead. "You called me perfect," he says.

Ford blinks, surprised. "I did," he agrees. "A few times, as I recall."

"That's," Dirk tries, and swallows. His mouth feels dry, and he can still taste his own blood from before. "That's a hell of a thing to say, man. I mean, I know I'm a competent swordsman and everything—"

"That was a compliment!" Ford shrugs, kebab waving around like a magic wand. "Why are you so annoyed by me paying you a compliment?"

"Damning with faint praise isn't a compliment, Stanford, but we aren't talking about that, right now." Dirk leans forward onto his knees, and pokes at the fire with a bare, greasy stick. "I don't know. People say things, in bed. I said some stuff, too. Just—I'm curious, I'm a curious guy, I'm basically a dead cat, I'm so curious."

Ford is looking at him with an inscrutable expression on his face. "You want to know why," he says. "Or—you want to know what I meant by that. Right?"

Dirk throws his stick into the fire, and watches it catch. "Yeah. I guess. Yes."

Ford rubs at his cheek, and the rasp of his stubble makes Dirk's skin prickle in sympathy. A moment passes, and the only noises are from the fire. Dirk is staring at Ford—his new favorite hobby, seems like—and Ford is staring back, considering.

"Before I met you," he says, "I was alone in a way I had never been, before. For the good part of a decade, I chose solitude, with only brief attempts at friendship with others. Anything romantic was even more short lived. My work was the most important thing. The one person—the one being whom I thought I could trust with my work, could work with, betrayed me beyond measure. After that," he says, turning to look into the fire, "can you blame me for thinking that I'd had it right the first time? That being alone was the best of all possible avenues, for me?"

Dirk nods. He can understand Ford's motivations, but could never choose to be alone, himself. He's had his fill of it.

"It was simple, at first," he continues. "I'm sure you felt the same. You were—you're very flattering, you always seem to have a line or a joke, and no one—gosh," he says, and pushes his hair out of his face, "No matter how handsome or dashing you think I am, no one has ever treated me the way you have. That you'd come into my life now, just after I'd decided to give up on interpersonal relationships forever—don't you see?"

Ford tosses his stick into the fire, and reaches out with both hands. Dirk takes them, and their fingers lace together. Ford looks down at them, smiling broadly.

"This is unprecedented," he says. "I never thought to wish for this, not since I was a child. You don't scream when I hold you."

Dirk frowns. "That's happened to you before?"

Ford's good mood only brightens. "It didn't even occur to you to, did it? You don't work for Bill, you have no possible ulterior motive for caring for me—"

"Oh." Dirk's heart sinks. "So, by 'perfect' you meant, 'meets my incredibly low standards.'" The sunset and the light from the fire are already making his face look red.

"Dirk," Ford says, pulling Dirk's hands closer, almost pulling Dirk off of the log where he's sitting, "this means something. Immediately before we met, I wouldn't have been able to describe my ideal partner if you'd put a gun to my head. But before that? Before, when I had the luxury of idle imaginings, I wanted someone with whom I could travel the universe. Someone who would believe without seeing. I wanted someone smart, and kind, and funny, yes, who doesn't? I wanted someone who preferred me for what makes me strange, maybe someone a little strange, themselves. Someone to understand what it's like, to be weird and passionate and alone."

Dirk's hands squeeze, and Ford squeezes back. "You're rambling," says Dirk, voice faint.

"I didn't meet you then," says Ford, certain, always so certain. "I couldn't have. So, I meet you now, at the crossroads of infinity. Call it fate, or call mind-boggling statistical unlikelihood. I called you perfect because you're impossibly good, for me, specifically." Ford lifts Dirk's hands, and kisses them on the knuckles, once each. "And I stand by what I said."

Love, to Dirk, is intense. It is focused, the way a rainbow fed through a prism becomes a single beam of white light. It is easier to love inanimate objects, because they don't object to obsessive, in-depth study. Loving people is difficult, because they grow, and change, and are almost impossible to chart. Dirk knows that he loves too much, too quickly.

Knowing all that changes nothing.

"Oh," says Dirk, as his insides rearrange around the swelling of his heart. Then, he says, "Gotcha."

Ford laughs, and falls forward, a bit. Dirk realizes that he's been tense this whole time, as if his feelings had been a weight on his shoulders. "So long as you're clear on the subject," he says.

Night falls around them, and soon enough the light from the campfire is the only light Dirk can see. They sit beside it, and beyond them are shadows of trees and then blackness. Dirk remembers the claustrophobia and heat of the hive, and savors the cool wind on his skin. He feels like he is floating in black space, just him, the fire, and Ford.

The fire crackles, and Ford says, "You're being uncharacteristically quiet, all of the sudden."

"Nah." Dirk's head has fallen back, again, and he's looking up at the stars. "Just tired. Don't wanna sleep, though."

Ford leans forward, elbows on his knees. "I can't say that I want you to, either."

"Yeah."

Dirk considers where he is, and the mind-boggling statistical unlikelihood of a few things. Ford can't actually know what he's signing up for. Last night, Dirk was pretending to be someone else—not for the entire time, but for a non-negligible percentage of it—and that character was the seductive one. Dirk edited his life story to be easily digestible, something funny and quirky, like he's a manic pixie dreamboy and not someone capable of rending a soul in twain. He's not the sort of person who gets kissed on the hand and called perfect. He didn't realize he was running a long con, until Ford made that declaration.

He doesn't deserve this. It's too happy of an ending.

Dirk stands, and goes to sit next to Ford. Their knees knock against each other's, and Dirk picks up Ford's arm and loops it around his shoulders like a blanket. Ford chuckles, and gives him a squeeze.

"Cold?" Asks Ford.

"Cuddly," corrects Dirk. "Like I would lie about why I'm up in your business. That would be childish. Let's be mature about this and snuggle, okay?"

Ford snorts, and nuzzles his hair. "You have such a way with words."

"Poet," Dirk says, and drops his head onto Ford's shoulder. "Competent one. I guess. It's--blank verse, I guess. Rap. I don't know."

"I have no idea what blank verse and rap have to do with each other," says Ford, and brings a hand to Dirk's hair, petting him. "But does this mean I have no sonnets from you in my future?"

Dirk's eyes go unfocused on the fire. It's a blur of orange and yellow, and the shadowy trees fade away. He listens to the beat of his heart, and the slow pace of Ford's breath. He tries to think, is the stress on the first syllable or the second? He can't remember, but he starts anyway.

"Travelling alone through time and space," he says, voice a monotone as he thinks,

"Hardly hoping, knowing not to ask

"The stars above to see a face

"Like yours. For what damned task

"Will the heavens rightly ask of me?

"How could I, retroactive, earn

"The vision of perfection whom I see?

"Am I now doomed to, in future, burn

"Like those stars—forever, knowing you exist?

"Because of human wishes, Troy is dust.

"Through a ten years' siege, Greece did persist,

"Until the red of blood had turned to rust.

It doesn't scan. The enjambment distracts him. He listens for Ford's breath, but he cannot hear it. He moves his head to look up, confused. Ford is staring at him, mouth open.

"Paris bested all, before the Horse," says Dirk. "Would I do the same for you? Of course."

Ford swallows, his eyes as big as saucers. Dirk pokes him in the thigh, and it seems to ground him. Finally, Ford says, "I thought—I thought you said you were tired. You made that up on the spot?"

Dirk shrugs, and kisses Ford's cheek. "Sonnet. Kind of. They're like lit nerd sudoku, they're not hard."

Ford brings both hands to Dirk's face and kisses him, knocking the wind from Dirk's lungs. Ford holds him gently, as if Dirk were something fragile, something worth such obvious care. Dirk's hands bunch up in Ford's lapels, and until Ford pulls away to breathe, Dirk forgets that's even a thing people do.

"Oh," sighs Dirk, blinking his eyes back into focus. "Poetry. Duly noted."

"That was beautiful," breathes Ford. "No one has ever written me a poem, before."

It isn't a good poem. It ends on the rhyme "horse/of course." "You're getting a better one," Dirk promises. "Once I'm—you know. Not seconds from passing out."

"I can't wait," says Ford. His hands are still on Dirk's face, and Dirk leans into them, bringing his own hands to Ford's wrists.

Sleep is an inevitability. The light from the fire begins to fade to red embers. They move to the bedroll, and tangle together in a tense knot. They are holding on to each other like they are each other's life preserver, and the ship is going down.

Ford is so warm, and the ground is so comfortable, that he can't gather the strength to say everything he needs to. Promise me you'll stay alive, he wants to shout. Tell me where Bill is, I'll rip him apart for you. Come with me. Be with me. Forget this revenge garbage and let me write you books full of shitty poems. 

Instead of any of this, instead of anything useful, Dirk whispers, "I'll find you."

"Look for me at home," Ford whispers back. "I'd be thrilled to show you around Gravity Falls."

Dirk says, "Deal."


	3. Just In the Neighborhood, Just Passing By

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for all of the kind comments and kudos!
> 
> Emetophobia warning for this chapter. A character experiences a panic attack.

Dirk's brain is not a healthy place for happy thoughts to live. Over time, they erode, like a rock at the bottom of a raging river, into something that looks and feels entirely different. This time, the happy thought is, "I'm going to find Ford, and he will be happy to see me."

He needs to wait for Ford to be successful, however. And he has no idea how long that will take. So, while he does look, he also doesn't get his hopes up. He knows how long the long game can really be. He distracts himself with his friends.

One year later, when Dirk sees a camel-colored trench coat in a store window, he stops, transfixed. He remembers the exact width of Ford's shoulders—this coat wouldn't fit him, but the length is about right.

"And it's not like—hey…" Roxy, finally realizing Dirk has stopped following her, turns. "What's up?"

Dirk nods to the coat. "Looks nice," he says.

Roxy examines it, and hums an uncertain note. "I dunno. You're more of a navy guy, aren't you? This is kind of light."

"Not for me," he says. "Do you remember me telling you about Ford?"

She doesn't laugh, but he can tell it's a close thing. "Once," she says, voice a song. "Or twice. Or a bajillion times, you loser. Why?"

"He wore something like this. Well," he amends, "kind of. The material was more worn, of course, and was a wool blend, and was single-breasted. But otherwise."

"Okay." She crosses her arms, and smiles at him. "So, nothing like this. Do you think about him every time you see a Doctor Who looking jacket?"

_ Yes. _ "No."

Roxy smiles and shakes her head, fond, but Dirk is uncomfortable. She finds him amusing—maybe kind of charming, sometimes, for being so fixated. But as has been established thousands of times, Roxy is exceptional in every possible way. Most people wouldn't think his obsession—because that's what it is, that's what love is like, for Dirk—is funny. Most people would think it's creepy, that  _ he's _ creepy.

Dirk doesn't know how to change what just happened, so he settles on picking a bit of lint off the shoulder of her sweater. "You meant a David Tennant jacket, by the way. Doctor Who isn't always in the same uniform. That's practically the whole point of the character."

"Being a fashionista?"

"Being a fashionista who punches robots," corrects Dirk. "It's great work, if you can get it."

Roxy's mouth twists to the side, and she pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He blinks, caught off-guard. "Wanna go in? Maybe they have turtlenecks you can huff."

Dirk half-smiles, but is whole-horrified. "God. Sorry. Have I really been that bad?"

She shrugs, and tugs him into the store by his wrist. "Not bad!" She corrects. "It's actually pretty cute, seeing you all worked up like this. I wanna meet him and give him the third degree." She links their hands, and swings them. "Hey, build me a shotgun?"

"I'm not building you a prop for your hypothetical interrogation, RoLal," he says. They both know he's lying. He loves building props for dumb bullshit.

Roxy finds glasses to peer imperiously behind, and says stuff she imagines Ford might ("Great Scott, Marty, we've gotta get back to my boyfriend!"). Dirk laughs, and decides to maybe keep his big mouth closed about Ford, from now on. Roxy had been patient enough with him.

The happy thought erodes a little, becoming simply "I'm going to find Ford." Dirk knows he's a lot to deal with. Ford hadn't had the chance to find that out.

Over time, he occasionally smells something like Ford's hair, or sees someone with an odd (or even) number of fingers, but he doesn't mention it. He talks about Ford less and less, keeping their night together—well, not a secret, it's far too late for that, but less public. He keeps the memories to himself, and they buzz around inside him, keeping him awake.

One day, when Jane wants to go on an adventure, just them—"You need something to tire you out and get you sleeping! The bags under your eyes are a full trundle set"—Dirk suggests Gravity Falls.

Her mouth twists in thought, and she pushes her glasses up with one finger. "Gravity whatnow?"

"Falls." He shrugs a shoulder. "I couldn't find it on Google Maps, but I figure you wouldn't mind solving that mystery with me."

Jane taps her chin with a finger, considering. "This wouldn't happen to be the same place that Ford fella is from, is it?"

Dirk keeps his face carefully blank. He hasn't spoken about Ford in ages. That she immediately guesses it is about him anyway tells him that he isn't nearly as stealthy as he tries to be.

He says, "Maybe."

"Is that right." She looks up into the blue sky of their world, eyes unfocused, seeing the borders that all of them can see, now. The white edges, beyond which is everything and everywhere. She travels more than he does, and sees more beyond the white. Apparently, from some perspectives, their whole existence is bordered on one side with a scroll bar.

He needs her to help him. He needs to know that, out past that grand white expanse, Gravity Falls exists.

"What the hey," she says, shrugging. "Let's track it down."

It takes days, but they do. Or, they find a few of them.

The first Gravity Falls is rubble floating in chaos. There are scorch marks on everything, acrid smoke rising from dead trees. There is nothing living there; whatever did this has moved on, probably days ago. Dirk wants to find the thing that did this, and kill it as painfully as possible, but that isn't in the cards.

Jane puts a hand on his arm, and squeezes.

"Let's try again," he says. "This isn't the right one."

He has to believe that. What would the alternative be?

They find others—it becomes easier to locate the town, and specifically the Mystery Shack that is usually in the center, as they get used to the energy surrounding and flooding the place. "It feels weird," says Jane. "Like it's haunted, but not in a bad way? Do you know what I mean?"

Dirk nods, and looks out over a town populated entirely by chubby, pink pigs. "It's weird, but it's friendly weird."

"Like us," says Jane. Dirk wonders how she can be so cute, all the time.

An older pig waddles by, mouth full of money and wearing a fez.

"This isn't the right place," Dirk says, "but it rules."

"I'll bookmark it," says Jane, and they wink out of that existence, in pursuit of the next one.

Worryingly, Gravity Falls turns out to not be a transuniversal constant. The weird, friendly energy rarely pools in one place, and if the topography is even slightly different—if there are one too many rivers, or were one too few earthquakes—Gravity Falls would be fundamentally Wrong. The name of the town would be Piedmont or Eaglecrest, or it would simply be a forest, not a building in sight.

"Next time," Jane says, sitting down on a stump and sighing, "when you have a magical night with someone, ask them to be a little more specific. Or get their number instead."

"He didn't—he doesn't have a phone," Dirk says, shying away from past tense. "He's from Ye Olde New Jersey."

"That's his birthday present sorted, then."

Dirk looks at her as she pulls off a shoe and shakes out a stone. Her eyes are glassy from exhaustion—they've been at this for dozens of worlds, and she's the more sensitive of the two of them. He doesn't know if it's her aspect, the raw life of this town affecting her negatively in some way. Before she sat down, he hadn't noticed that she was tired. He's being, he instantly knows, a jerk.

"Jane," he says, serious.

She looks up. "What's cookin'?"

"You don't," he starts, and rubs his hands together, pondering how to phrase this. "You don't have to help me do this. I can find him on my own time. You wanted to have fun, and I led us on a wild town chase instead. That's—that's not fair."

Jane crosses her legs at the ankle and leans back. "I sort of figured our adventure would be something like this," she admits. "I mean. I have  _ met _ you, Dirk Strider. You don't do ‘rest and relaxation' very well. You barely do ‘rest' at all."

That makes two of his closest friends thinking he's a handful. Only once each, and years apart, granted. But Dirk doesn't get to choose what memories he automatically accesses, and his brain seems to curate exclusively negative ones.

"Tell you what," says Jane, finally standing again, "we hit up one more Mystery Shack, and after, we find the World of Comfy Sofas and Root Beer Floats. Does that sound good to you?"

It does.

The next Mystery Shack seems standard issue, with the S of the sign on the ground by an incredibly vague-looking goat. Nothing tries to jump out and eat them as they approach, and there are no pigs to speak of. Just as Jane raises a hand to knock on the door, it's flung open, and a jolly-looking guy in a fez smiles down at them.

"Hey, dudes!" His voice is deep and gentle, completing the impression that he would make a great Santa someday. "Welcome to the Mystery Shack! I'm Soos, the resident man of mystery. Are you ready to see some stuff that will make you question the very nature of your existence and life as we know it?"

Jane smiles at him. It's almost impossible not to smile at him. "Gosh, that sounds great! But actually, we're looking for someone."

"Ford," says Dirk. He barely recognizes his own voice, strained as it suddenly is. This version of the Shack is familiar in ways the others weren't. It feels balanced, and kind, and—weird. Weird energy is in the air, thicker than humidity, charged like static. It's stable, though, for all that it's strong. The other Shacks were splinters, poor copies of this one. Dirk can feel it in his blood. "Stanford Pines. Is he here?"

"Sorry, dudes," says Soos. Dirk wants to cry, wants to scream—until Soos continues, "you just missed him."

Heart in his throat, Dirk stares wordlessly at him. Jane says, "Darn. When will he be back?"

Soos shrugs. "Couldn't tell ya. He and his brother went to sail the seven seas and strengthen their familial bond. They left a few months ago, but they'll come back by next summer, for sure."

Jane nods, and smiles. "This might sound like a silly question, but what's the date today?"

"October seventeenth. And that's not silly," he adds. "I'm always forgetting that stuff, and sometimes we get time travelers. It's always a wild ride at the Mystery Shack."

"Time travelers, huh?" Jane prompts, and Soos explains a few of the stranger customers he's gotten recently. Dirk continues to be physically present, but mentally and emotionally unavailable.

He'd felt it, he'd  _ known _ this Shack was the right one, the one that Ford had told him about the night they met and traded life stories. Ford was here—not now, because life was never that kind to Dirk, but he would be again soon. He'd made it back to his home, he's  _ alive, _ and Dirk will see him, kiss him, and lift him like the end of  _ Dirty Dancing. _ Right this second, Ford is on the same planet as Dirk, and Dirk can barely breathe.

"I need a boat," says Dirk, interrupting whatever Soos and Jane are talking about.

Soos blinks at him, but seems to take it in stride. "We don't sell boats. I could ask around, see if anyone has a boat you can use."

Jane puts her hand on Dirk's arm, again. It's not a gesture of comfort, this time—more of a gesture of "slow your roll." "The seven seas are pretty big, I've heard."

_ So's infinity,  _ Dirk doesn't say, but he does shoot her a look. She sticks her tongue out at him in response. Then, he remembers Jake's latest ostentatious purchase. "I can take the  _ Buffet." _

"Dirk," sighs Jane, finally losing her patience, "you want to show up to woo your dream date aboard the  _ Jolly Jimmy Buffet II? _ It plays  _ Boat Drinks _ on repeat, for crying out loud. It's got Jake's face painted on the side!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," says Soos, hands up. "I don't know what you're talking about, but no one disrespects Jimmy Buffet in the Shack. Even if you're still on the porch, and not technically  _ in _ the Shack." He pauses to think. "Do you wanna come in?"

Something like fear grips Dirk's heart, and he says, "No, thanks." He examines the feeling, and thinks about what excuse to make. He can't do this, can't look at the shadows of Ford's life without being able to reach out and touch him. Dirk has no idea if that's a normal way to feel, since he and normal are barely in sight of each other, most days, but it's the truth.

"He'd rather wait for Ford, I think," supplies Jane, fantastic friend and all-around good person.

Soos shrugs. "Have it your way, dude. They don't send too many letters, but I think Stan mentioned June sometime. There's a motel in town, if you need a place to crash."

"Thanks," says Dirk again, wondering who Stan is. "You're weirdly helpful."

"It's my pleasure!" And it genuinely sounds like it is. Some people are born to work customer service.

Dirk and Jane step into the forest again, and as light and matter streak away from them, Jane says, "Mystery solved."

"I can't believe it," says Dirk. He quickly adds, "not that I doubted you, supersleuth. Your powers of observation and ability to wheedle information out of strangers—really kind strangers, turns out. He must be new, Ford never mentioned him. I was—well, not worried, but—"

Jane pats him on the back. "Slow down, you're going to bite your tongue at this rate."

_ "Thank you," _ he finishes, reaching out. He never knows how to initiate platonic affection, but this is Jane, so she gets the message. They hug, and Dirk realizes that he's shaking. "Thank you, Jane. For helping me, and for being there."

"Anytime," she says. "Buy me a sundae, and then let's head home."

The happy thought—the idea that he was going to find Ford, alive and safe—stays intact for about a month. Then, Jake comes back, holding a ragged piece of driftwood under his arm. Miserable, he traces the outline of a capital  _ B. _

"All that's left of  _ Jolly Jimmy," _ he sighs. "The ocean, she's a harsh mistress! And a total asshole, I don't want to have to buy a boat  _ again." _

Two minutes later, Dirk is hunched over the toilet, mouth sour with bile, and struggling to breathe. Jake is rubbing soothing circles into his back, and slowly piecing together why Dirk is having a panic attack.

"You're like a war wife," says Jake finally. "Waiting for your man to come back from the front. Only the front is the whole ocean, I guess, and he wasn't drafted. Was he drafted? Is there a war against fish, where he's from? You said you had a lot in common, but I wasn't expecting that!"

Dirk spits into the toilet and rests his aching forehead against the ceramic. "No fish war," he says. "None that I know of. There are monsters, though."

"Well, yeah," says Jake, shrugging. Jake always assumes there are monsters. He's only rarely wrong. "But you said he's built like a brick shithouse."

"You can be built and still be—mortal," manages Dirk. He starts to shiver, and even with Jake's warm hand at his spine, he can't seem to stop.

Jake cleans him up, giving him mouthwash and moving him to the living room of their shared home. Jake has no stuff to unpack, what with it all being at the bottom of the sea, so he's free to cuddle up under some blankets with Dirk.

This is not the first panic attack Dirk has had in Jake's presence. There's a protocol, and Jake follows it. He doesn't ruin it by putting on  _ Weekend at Bernie's, _ the way he did the first time. He just waits for Dirk to stop shivering, and to talk through what set him off. Weirdly—impossibly—Jake is a pretty okay moirail, though Dirk would never use that word out loud.

"He's not dead," says Jake. "You would have felt it. Through the Force."

"The Force isn't real," mutters Dirk, muffled by blankets, comfortable in Jake's arms.

Jake sighs noisily, and picks at the seams of an ancient quilt. "Not with that attitude. You know what I mean, anyway."

Dirk knows, he just doesn't like it. Jake's insistence that everything will be okay, regardless of the odds, is infuriating more than half of the time. The rest of the time, Dirk's grateful for it, because he needs the reminder. Just because something bad  _ can _ happen, doesn't mean that it absolutely  _ will _ .

"The Force is strong with you," continues Jake. "And with him, sounds like! I'll bet that once he hears you visited and he was out, he'll kick himself and stay put until you come back."

"I can't believe you're using the Force as a synonym for attraction," Dirk says. "That's awful. That's prequels-level bad."

Jake elbows him, and huffs. "The prequels are romantic!"

Dirk, surrounded by pillows and fluffy blankets, gives Jake his best intimidating glare. Jake crosses his eyes at him, and then smiles.

"He'll be fine," Jake says again. "I mean, he probably actually knows how to sail. I was just sort of winging it."

"Jake," says Dirk, deeply unsurprised but still disappointed. "What the fuck."

He shrugs. "The call to adventure waits for no man! It especially doesn't wait for him to do boring junk like research. I'll learn as I go."

Dirk pinches Jake's thigh under the blankets, and Jake yelps.

"Don't die," says Dirk. "Even knowing that you can't, I still feel the need to ask you not to. What does that tell you?"

"That I'm an  _ unpredictable rogue," _ says Jake proudly. "Like Han Solo before me."

They end up marathoning  _ Star Wars, _ because Jake is very transparent about his needs when it comes to cinema. They don't move from the pile of blankets for hours, except for a quick break during  _ Return of the Jedi _ to find snacks and put on PJs. Dirk slides lower and lower in his seat, until he gives up on being vertical and puts his head in Jake's lap.

Jake doesn't pet him. Years ago—almost a decade ago, holy shit—he would have. But it's one of those things that, outside of their brief and doomed relationship, they never really got into. Dirk doesn't even miss it. There's another hand he wants to feel in his hair, now.

That thought pulls him out of the movie entirely. He sighs, eyelids heavy.

Jake bounces his knee, just once. "What's up, pal?"

Dirk's tired, his system is still recovering from his sudden rush of adrenaline earlier, and he's so comfortable that he doesn't think at all before he asks, "Am I a lovable person?"

The room goes quiet, except for the buzz-woosh of lightsabers. Dirk freezes, and Jake says nothing, and Dirk wants to throw off the blankets and run. It's been years, but they're barely not teenagers, they still  _ sound _ the way they had, how much has changed, really? Dirk is still asking awful, manipulative things of Jake, even when he doesn't have the same feelings he—

Jake brings a hand to Dirk's cheek, and very gently pats it. "Yeah," he says, like it's easy. "Of course. Why?"

"It's just," says Dirk, words crawling unbidden out of his throat, "people say that I'm—a lot."

Jake moves his hand to Dirk's shoulder, and starts picking at his own cuticles. "People? Like the press?"

"What? No." Dirk frowns up at him. It should be a horrible angle, with Dirk looking right up Jake's nose, but it isn't. "Roxy and Jane."

"Okay. That's a little bonkers." Jake is still looking down at Dirk instead of at the movie. "I don't know why they said that, but it's kind of true. You're a lot of things. You're a genius engineer and you're a god and you're a prince, I guess? Why would that make you less of a catch?"

Dirk shrugs a shoulder. "I meant that I can be too much for people to handle."

"You are, in a lot of ways, an amorous campsite, good buddy."

That one takes a second—amorous, loving, tents,  _ fucking intense _ —and Dirk snorts.

"But," Jake continues, "Ford knows that already. The way you tell it, you exchanged brief autobiographies, then smooched like it was the end of the world. Then you—did stuff." Jake's face gets a little red. "You know. Seems to me, he likes you fine."

Dirk mulls this over. Then he says, "'Did stuff.'"

"Shut up!"

"That was not a very Han Solo thing to say, Jake."

"I'll push you right off this couch! And you will deserve it."

They bicker, and push at each other, and smear Cheeto dust on each other's shirts. The tension curling along Dirk's ribs finally eases, and he can breathe without feeling slightly dizzy. Despite everything—their history, their mistakes—Jake is still Dirk's best friend. He's family.

He found Ford. Things will be all right. June will arrive, and Dirk will go back to the Mystery Shack. That happy thought comes back, stronger than it had been at the start.

_ I'm going to see Ford,  _ thinks Dirk. _ And he will be happy to see me, because he likes me fine. _

Eventually, Jake puts on the prequels. Dirk falls asleep, and dreams of Oregon forests.


	4. Fancy Seeing You Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for all of the comments and kudos!
> 
> This chapter contains sexual content.

"Hey, Dirk?"

Dirk is hunting cicadas on his 3DS. Roxy, sitting next to him, is paying off part of her home loan, only to buy a bigger house. "Hmm?"

"You know ‘he'll be back in June' doesn't mean ‘he'll be back instantly at midnight on June first,' right?"

Dirk's avatar skulks among the trees, slow and careful. "Ha ha."

Roxy nudges his foot with her own. "Thanks for laughing! But I'm serious."

"I know you are." He taps the screen, and expertly grabs a common brown one. "I'm not headed there at midnight."

"Smooth," says Roxy. "Play him hot and cold. Keep him guessin'."

Dirk nods in agreement. She means well, wanting to keep him from looking desperate.

He arrives in Gravity Falls on June first at 5:00 AM. He'd planned for six, but he couldn't sleep, and he could always lie to Roxy later. Fact is, he  _ is _ desperate, and honesty is an important cornerstone of—whatever this is. Or whatever it could be.

The Mystery Shack is even more mysterious in the early dawn, shrouded in mist and shadow; Dirk walks to the front door at a steady pace, counting the beats of his bounding heart. The weird energy of this dimension makes him shiver as he grows accustomed to it. He knocks at the front door, just twice. He puts his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and clenches them into fists. It's cold enough to see his breath entangle with the surrounding mist, hot and cold together.

The door opens, and Dirk takes a mental picture, searing it into his long-term memory forever.

It's a man, wearing a sleeveless shirt, striped boxers, and a cranky expression. "We're not open! Get lost!"

Dirk's eyes widen. He knows that jawline, he's kissed that brow, but that isn't the voice he remembers. He looks down at the man's hands, and swallows.

"Do you," Dirk tries, but the words are barely a whisper. He clears his throat, and tries again. "Do you know Stanford Pines?"

The man adjusts his glasses, and closes the door an inch. "Are you a cop? If you're a cop, you gotta tell me. I know my rights."

Dirk stares at him. His face is familiar, but much, much older—there are deep lines around his eyes and mouth, and his hair, while adorably mussed, is grey as granite. The cogs of Dirk's brain keep catching on each other, processing two should-be-contradictory thoughts at a remarkably slow speed:  _ He's an old man, _ and  _ It's him, I found him, he's here. _

"Not a cop," he hears himself say. "I'm—I know Ford."

This does not get him the stamp of approval that he expects. The door closes by another few inches, and the porch light glares off the man's glasses, obscuring his eyes but not his frown. Dirk keeps trying to guess his age—fifty? Sixty?—but his mind keeps stopping short of a concrete number.

"Listen, pal," he says, no-nonsense, "this goes one of two ways. One, you get the hell off my property. Two, you keep your hands where I can see ‘em, I grab my five-ring set, and you tell me how, exactly, you ‘know' Stanford Pines."

Dirk removes his hands from his pockets, holding them up level to his shoulders. It's a very fair question, and not one he knows how to answer. One of the man's arms moves to rustle in a chest of drawers by the entrance, and there's a glint of brass when he finds what he wants.

"Start talking," he says.

Dirk looks from the brass knuckles to the man's frowning, concerned face, and mentally takes off his brain-to-mouth filter. Honesty, he reminds himself, is the best policy.

"I met Ford maybe twenty of your years ago. I'm not from ‘round here, so I didn't feel those years the same way you did. We met in a club with glow-in-the-dark insects and slightly overpriced drinks. We talked about our lives, our dreams, his pursuit of knowledge for the greater good, my creation of a world—"

"Fuck me," interrupts the man, eyebrows raised, "are you  _ Dirk Strider?" _

Dirk's hands twitch as hope floods his system, leaving him shivering. "Yes. Yes, I am, I'm Dirk Strider, has he talked about me? That's a stupid question, he must have, it's not like it's an easy name to guess out of the blue. I'm Dirk, can I talk to Ford, please? I need to—"

"Stanley?"

Dirk's voice squeaks to a halt. He hears footsteps ascending distant stairs, and then crossing a room, approaching the entrance. He's shuddering like a chihuahua in a blizzard, and his mouth is still open from his word vomit. His hands are still up, and he's forgotten why.

Stanford Pines appears over his twin's shoulder, saying, "I heard voices, what—"

And then they lock eyes.

Dirk has never been to the Louvre—he's not a fine arts guy, really. But he's heard that, even from a distance, people get chills when they see the Mona Lisa. There's something awe-inspiring about seeing something so famous, so  _ quintessential,  _ in person. Seeing the original of something that's copied everywhere—and the copies have copies, and it trickles down and saturates popular culture so much that you forget what the original even looks like—

He's been seeing pieces of Ford everywhere in his life for five years. Now, seeing him in person again is that same kind of awe-inspiring. It exceeds the original, even, because—

Ford has stripes of white at his temples. His face, still lantern-jawed, is softer; his eyes are kinder, less haunted. As Stanley moves to the side, Dirk takes in his broad chest, his muscled arms, accentuated by the fit of his grandpa turtleneck. If Ford had ticked new boxes for Dirk before, he's introducing entire new checklists, now. Stanford Pines, distinguished older scientist, is standing before him, in the flesh.

"Wow," says Dirk. Then, his face splits into a smile that's almost painful. "Hi."

Ford, haloed by the light from inside the Shack, gently tugs his brother—because that's who it is, that's who is has to be—out of the way. His eyes dart from Dirk's face, to his jacket, to the suitcase he brought with him, and then back to his face. Dirk's shades are in his pocket, but if his eyes sting in the light, he doesn't have the presence of mind to notice.

"Dirk," breathes Ford, and Dirk practically levitates. Ford smiles slowly, like the sun coming over the horizon. "You found me."

For a moment, they just stare at each other, only a foot apart, but neither coming forward to close the gap. Dirk lowers his hands and reaches out, to touch, finally, whom he's been dreaming about, but is interrupted mid-grasp by Stanley.

"I'm going back to bed," he announces. "Nothing upstairs is soundproof, so just. Keep that in mind, wouldja?"

He leaves. Neither of them notice, much.

"You're unbelievable," Ford says. His voice is just slightly deeper, but just as kind as Dirk remembers. "The morning after we met, I realized I had only given you a name. There must be thousands of Gravity Falls'—millions of possible instances to sort through. But you still… you're still here."

"Not that many," says Dirk, laser-focused on the shape of Ford's mouth. "And I had help. The space part wasn't that tricky, once we got the hang of it, but the time…"

A shadow passes over Ford's face. Dirk blinks, refocusing on Ford's expression, but Ford is obscuring it, adjusting his glasses in the same porch light that his brother had used.

"Stanley brought me home," says Ford, and his voice isn't so soft, now. "He reactivated the portal, against my express wishes, and endangered the dimension that I had explicitly enlisted him to protect. Then, he… saved me. Saved us all."

Dirk asks, "When?"

Ford crosses his arms, brow furrowed, no longer smiling. He wasn't even looking Dirk in the eye. "Last year," he says. "Twenty-seven years after I met you."

Dirk reaches out, but Ford doesn't. Ford keeps his arms crossed, keeps standing just a foot away. It might as well be a thousand miles. Dirk lets his arms drop.

"It wasn't," says Dirk, voice strained. "It wasn't that long, for me."

"I can see that," says Ford.

"Can you?" Dirk tugs his sleeves over his hands, remembering suddenly that it's cold, outside. "I told you I was immortal when you met me. It could have been a hundred years. Ford, it  _ felt _ like a hundred years."

Ford's jaw clenches, and Dirk watches as a muscle flickers at the side of his face. "I understand," he says. "I—thought of you often, over the years. I'm glad to see you again."

They're standing over a precipice that Dirk can't see. Fear wraps around Dirk's heart. "Ford?"

"I know this isn't what you wanted to find," Ford continues. "It's unexpected, but that seems to be a pattern with us, doesn't it? I—I would understand if you didn't want the tour, now. The one of Gravity Falls we were hoping to do. Things change." He uncrosses his arms, and puts them in his trouser pockets, posture tense as a bowstring. "People change. I would understand."

"Ford," repeats Dirk. He swallows, and brings his shoulders back, and leans forward to catch Ford's gaze. "Kiss me."

Ford's face goes slack with shock. "I—what?"

"I cannot  _ fucking _ believe," says Dirk, closing the space between them and bringing his hands to Ford's ribs, "that you are making me stand out in the cold while you look so toasty in your turtleneck. I'm from Texas. You're being cruel."

Ford brings his hands to Dirk's shoulders, and Dirk feels instantly guarded against the chill. Ford's eyes are wide, but he pulls Dirk toward him and steps backward into the Shack. "You—you're sure? You said it yourself, the timing wasn't what you intended."

Dirk runs his fingers along Ford's side, warming them with his body heat and enjoying how solid he feels. "And you said it  _ your _ self—if I'd been any earlier to the party, you wouldn't have been here. Which isn't what I wanted at all."

"I'm old," says Ford, finally backed up against a wall.

"I'm into it," says Dirk, crowding against him. "I'm—Jesus, I'm  _ worryingly  _ into it, you're a dream, you're like the perfect sexy librarian, only you're a sexy scientist. Kiss me, Ford, then take me to a surface we can make out on.  _ I missed you." _

Ford kisses him, and Dirk instantly forgets the cold. He pushes Ford's shoulders against the wall, keeping him still as Dirk groans into his mouth. His body is a masterpiece, and Dirk wants to take pictures, he wants to revisit every dip and curve he'd memorized, their first night together. Dirk's suitcase is left on the porch, and Ford dips his head to Dirk's neck, sucking hard enough to bruise. Dirk gasps, and Ford makes a ragged, almost frustrated sound.

"Perfect," insists Ford. "You always were; I worried sometimes that I'd made you up."

Dirk brings their hips together, both hands on Ford's ass. "You didn't. I'm here."

"You're  _ here," _ agrees Ford, practically laughing as they move together. Dirk can't seem to stop smiling, and it's making the kissing difficult.

They fumble their way to a bedroom, and Dirk is a Gordian knot of half-thoughts and feelings. Ford is fit, and scarred, and has more tattoos for Dirk to taste. He marvels at the feeling of Ford on top of him, pinning him in place and running through what Dirk likes like he's practiced with flashcards. Ford remembers  _ everything, _ knows exactly how bring Dirk to the edge and keep him there.

_ "How," _ pants Dirk, grinding up but finding no friction. Ford has moved away, just out of reach, and smiles down at him.

"I took notes, of course." Ford brings his hands, callused and hot, to Dirk's hips, and pins them to the bed. "I studied. I'd never been interested in learning how to do this with another man, before you, but after—if I find that something's worth doing, I find that it's worth doing right."

Dirk lets his eyes fall closed, and tries to take steadying breaths. "You're—you're a  _ nerd, _ has anyone—?"

"Ever told me that? I can think of a few times."

Ford moves again, and the next thing Dirk feels is Ford's mouth, slowly taking him in. Studying  _ rules,  _ Dirk decides. Studying is the  _ best. _ He's not sure if he says this out loud, or just moans, but Ford chuckles at him either way.

Later, when the sun is high in the sky, Ford is still looking down at Dirk, smiling absently. Dirk, for his part, is totally unable to move.

"I missed you, too," says Ford. "Very much."

"Uh-huh," manages Dirk. He's boneless, and moments from sleep. He tries to keep his eyes open for as long as possible, though, taking in Ford's relaxed, lopsided grin.

"I was going to ask if you wanted to stay," says Ford, "but then I recalled your suitcase."

Dirk mutters, "I like to plan ahead," and then passes out.

-

Later, when Dirk has taken a shower and brushed his teeth, he feels that the next logical step is to explore the house. Ford has hidden himself somewhere, and while Dirk didn't really expect him to be holding him when he woke up, he's very ready to find him and kiss him again. He wonders, a little, if that will ever stop being at the top of his priority list.

His search leads him to an attic room, clean but cluttered, featuring two small beds stripped of sheets. The light is warm, and suggests that it's late afternoon. He keeps his hands in the pockets of his jeans, taking in the few decorations: children's drawings on a bulletin board, a dusty glass bottle, a forgotten set of multi-sided dice. It's a room for kids, which surprises him. He wonders if Stanley, protective and foul-mouthed, is someone's father.

When he descends the stairs, he smells something…  _ related _ to coffee—burnt and sour, like petrol, but coffee-like. He looks through the doorway to the kitchen, and sees Stanley, sitting at the table, steaming mug in front of him, polishing a rifle.

"Oh," says Dirk. "I know what this is."

Stanley raises an eyebrow, but doesn't stop running a dirty cloth along the barrel of the gun. "As far as metaphors go, I prefer the ones that are literal. Take a seat, Dirk."

Dirk does, crossing his arms over his chest. He considers propping his feet up on the table, but figures it's a step too far. He wants to impress Stanley, not be overtly rude to him.

"So," says Stanley, and fiddles with the safety without turning it off. "You and Ford, huh?"

Dirk's heart flutters. He's never had to formally "meet the family," before, and he's oddly excited. "Me and Ford," he agrees.

He can't keep the warmth out of his voice, and Stan's nose wrinkles a little when he hears it. "Right. He's mentioned you before. Didn't know it was you, without those triangle glasses."

"That's nice," says Dirk. "Are you going to threaten me, or should I come back once you've prepared something more intimidating to say?"

Stanley flicks the safety off. "Here's a question—what are your plans, now that you're here? You're just gonna move in, after three decades of nothing? He's been through hell. Multiple hells. You mind sparing us both the bullshit?"

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Dirk wonders if he's making a good first impression with Stanley. He figures he isn't but also that "Hi, I'm the guy boning your brother" is kind of a hard sell. "You're asking about my intentions? That's kind of adorable."

Stanley's lip curls. "Thanks, kid. You got a straight answer?"

Dirk can't resist. "No. But my gay answer is—"

"Oh, boy."

"—I care about him. A lot. Even ‘a lot' is mad understating it."

Stanley gives the gun one last once-over, resets the safety and puts it on the table. He leans down, to pick something up from under his chair. "You know about Bill, right?" He asks, and surfaces with… another gun.

"Uh." Dirk examines the new addition—a shotgun, this time. "A little. Annoying, evil, popular primary color?"

"He was a manipulative little creep, and it took a lot of work to bring him down." Stanley examines the chambers of the gun, which Dirk notices are loaded, before snapping it closed again. "So when a new guy comes around the Shack with a mysterious backstory, alleged godlike abilities, and a haircut straight out of the sci-fi sideburns dimension, I don't exactly throw a parade."

Dirk bristles, a bit. "You think I'm anything like Bill Cipher?"

"Nothing personal," says Stanley. "Ford's relationships go one of two ways: they're either mistakes, or  _ huge _ mistakes."

One of the weirdest parts of this conversation is that Dirk keeps looking at Stanley and seeing Ford. Not just in their shared physical traits, but in the way Stanley cleans the shotgun, easy and practiced. How his nose wrinkles when he thinks Dirk is being gross. Stanley cares about his twin brother, enough to talk big to a god. A god he trusts about as much as Dirk would trust a wolf not to bite.

It's sweet, Dirk thinks, even as he feels deeply insulted on Ford's behalf as well as his own.

"You don't trust your brother's judgement?"

Stanley, to his credit, doesn't take the bait. "I trust him plenty. It's  _ you _ I don't trust. You get that, right?"

He does. "Any actionable advice, Stanley? Or are we doomed to glare at each other from across the dinner table forever?"

Stanley pauses, dirty rag on the muzzle. "Forever?"

_ Oh, shit, _ thinks Dirk. Stanley, not an idiot by any standard, watches him, and Dirk  _ knows _ he knows Dirk's slipped up.

"Well," says Dirk, voice strange to his own ears, "that was a joke. If you glare that much, your face will stay that way, isn't that what people tell their kids? 'Forever' is clearly hyperbole. The heat death of the universe would stop me from having eyes, for example, which would make it difficult to glare. Or, if that doesn't happen, we could just—eat dinner in shifts. I don't normally eat dinner at a standard time, and no offense, but you look like you'd favor the early bird special."

Stanley's face is inscrutable when he asks, "You want to be with Ford forever?"

"'Glare' doesn't sound like a word anymore, does it?" Dirk continues, desperate to change the subject. "Isn't language wild? Exposure to vocabulary is the only way to learn it, but overexposure means you kind of unlearn it. Glare, glare, glare."

"You two had a day," insists Stanley. "It hasn't even been  _ two _ days."

Dirk bites his tongue. Stanley reads him like a fucking Denny's menu, Dirk's thoughts as obvious as those giant pictures of pancakes.

"You're serious," says Stanley.

_ Of course I am, _ he doesn't say. _ I've thought about him every day since we met, I've catalogued every pop culture reference he made in an online database so I could figure out what jokes he would find funny, it's killing me that he's not here  _ right now, _ this second, this instant. _

"Maybe," says Dirk. "Um. Yeah, I am."

For one long moment, Stanley just looks at him, and Dirk doesn't breathe. Then, Stanley nods, and puts the shotgun down on the table, parallel with the rifle.

"I think you're nuts," he says. "But maybe it's an okay kind of nuts."

Dirk swallows, and considers stealing some of Stanley's poisonous coffee. "Oh, yeah?"

Stanley stands, and picks up his mug. "It's a big 'maybe.' But if Ford's willing to roll those bones, who am I to say no?"

"A guy with at least two guns," Dirk answers. He realizes the question was hypothetical a smidge too late.

Finally, Stanley cracks a grin. It transforms his face, making him look younger and full of energy. Dirk wonders if Ford has a smile like that, and what he would have to do to see it.

"I've got ten guns," says Stanley proudly. "Not counting these."

He flexes his arms. Dirk politely applauds.

Stanley—"Call me Stan," he insists, "'Stanley' is for VIPs only"—collects his guns and moves out of the kitchen, leaving Dirk to consider how that just went. There was less bodily harm than he had expected, which both is and isn't disappointing. Stan is, in his own way, a bit of a beefcake.

Dirk does his best to not immediately fall prey to his own anxiety. It isn't like he lied. He does want to be with Ford forever. It just—probably it's too soon. He can only guess. The only other time he'd felt this strongly, the feeling developed parallel to his own development, until one person became his entire romantic horizon. Having a fresh start with someone new, someone who didn't have an entire World of Emotional Baggage and Bullshit with him, is kind of wonderful along with being scary.

It could be anywhere between five and twenty minutes before a hidden door whirrs open, revealing Ford. He couldn't possibly be well-rested, but he looks refreshed, and smiles when he sees Dirk.

"Good afternoon!" He collects Stan's mug of mysterious grossness and dumps it in the sink, all while never taking his eyes off of Dirk. "Rest well?"

Dirk nods, leaning forward onto his elbows. He angles his whole body and attention at Ford, like he's a flower and Ford's a sunlamp. "Yeah. I was pretty wiped."

"I know," says Ford, ears pink, smiling like he's been poisoned by the Joker. It's infectious.

Ford makes himself coffee with a machine that he's clearly had a hand in repairing. It doesn't turn into sludge when he does it, instead pouring out a fiendishly strong French roast. He makes two mugs without looking down, relying entirely by muscle memory. He never stops staring at Dirk.

Twenty-eight years. Dirk would have lost his mind.

When Ford finally sits next to Dirk at the table, Dirk thanks him for the coffee and asks, "So, what are you working on, babe?"

Ford raises an eyebrow, but he's still smiling. "Well, dear, it's not all that easy to describe. We'll have to head down to the lab, so I can show you."

"Hot," says Dirk, and means it. "You don't have any super delicate instruments measuring seismic activity running right now, do you?"

"Hmm." He takes a careful sip of hot coffee, and Dirk watches him mentally scroll down a list of projects. "No, I don't believe so. Why do you ask?"

Dirk's smile becomes something closer to a smirk, and he runs his socked foot along the side of Ford's ankle. "Hmm. I wonder."

They head down to the lab, hands linked. Ford shows him the improvements he has planned for the  _ Stan o' War II _ , the renewed protections he's drafting for the Shack, and a dozen small assignments he's planning on giving someone named Dipper. Dirk listens, genuinely interested, but unsure if he can offer constructive criticism or advice. These are Ford's projects, and Dirk's a visitor, down here.

"So," says Dirk, looking over the  _ Stan o' War II _ 's hull modifications, "Stanley."

Ford straightens up, and adjusts the hang of his coat. "Yes. My twin brother. We were inseparable, when we were boys, but by the time I met you, we'd had... a bit of a falling out."

Dirk tries to imagine it. It takes a lot of guesswork—guessing what it would be like to have a twin, to grow up with a brother instead of just stories of a guardian from the distant past. The closest thing he can imagine is Roxy, but then he can't think of anything that would irreversibly damage their relationship. RoLal is the shit. Stan must have really messed something up, for Ford not to have brought him up at all when Dirk asked for his life story. He's curious, but not so curious as to give Ford the third degree right this second.

At the end of the tour, Ford steps away from Dirk to dig through a box of cardboard tubes. "It's here somewhere," he mutters. "I haven't updated it since last year, but it should still be accurate."

Dirk stays a step behind him, peering over his shoulder. "Whatcha looking for?"

"Aha!" Ford pulls out tube, large but otherwise unremarkable, and pulls the plug out of one end. He tilts the tube, and a roll of graph paper slides out into his hand. "Take a look at this."

Ford spreads it out on an empty workbench, and it falls open naturally, like it never spent too long curled up. Dirk looks from it to Ford's eager smile and back, and steps toward it, attempting to read what he sees.

At first, he sees a star chart. It's unfamiliar to him, but the presence of a few marked constellations tell him roughly where Ford must have been standing when he took this data. Nowhere on Earth, that much is obvious. Dirk hovers a finger over an inverse Andromeda, and thinks. He's seen this before, he must have.

The star chart is bordered with equations, formulas that stem from Ford's interdimensional travels. They're like Jane's "bookmarks," five-dimensional coordinates for places they've been. Dirk recognizes the boldest one, and then looks back at the stars, spellbound.

"I had to work from memory," says Ford, smoothing out invisible wrinkles from the paper. "The rotation and orbit of that planet was much faster than I had anticipated; the night sky changed so much, one night to the next." He points at the equations surrounding the locational bookmark. "These are just a few of the places I thought you might have gone, after we were separated. None of them turned out to be right, of course, but they turned into places I wanted to go with you, after we found each other again. A detailed list of new dimensions to explore, or ones I thought you might enjoy."

Dirk's throat is burning, and his hands shake as he finally finds a stripe of distant galaxy that he recognizes. He saw it only once, right before he pulled Ford under a streetlamp and kissed him.

"This is the sky from the night we met," says Dirk.

Ford nods. "At first I hoped I could use it to find you. Eventually, it evolved into what you see here. A recording of a memory."

When Dirk finally looks up from the chart, Ford is still smiling, but with a shade of nervousness. He tries to tell Ford it's beautiful, but he can't seem to find his voice.

"It's for you," Ford says, and twists his hands together. "I'm sorry the math isn't perfect. Do you like it?"

Dirk gives up on trying to speak, and brings his hands to the sides of Ford's face. Ford looks back at him, and whatever he sees in Dirk's expression makes the tension fall from his shoulders.

They spend more time in the lab. Dirk is careful not to throw their clothes on anything important. Later on, Ford will find that he  _ had _ left on a seismograph, and that their slightly desperate sex had registered as a magnitude V.

"Radical," says Dirk, wearing Ford's glasses instead of his own. "Let's break the record after dinner, I'm fucking starving."

"Language," chides Ford. Dirk just winks at him.

-

It's almost four in the morning, and Dirk can't sleep. After being restless for weeks and crashing from ten AM to three, it's only to be expected. He knows that this isn't something a midnight snack and trip to the shower is going to cure. He sits up in bed, and the musty-smelling sheets fall off of him, pooling at his lower body.

The window lets in the cool light of the stars, and Dirk gets to stare at Ford again. He remembers this moment from years ago—decades ago, depending on one's perspective. Dirk tries not to think about that, and lets the curve of Ford's arm occupy his mind instead.

Ford is a stomach sleeper. He has his arms flung out, like he could hold the whole word in them. His hair curls at the back of his neck, and Dirk wants to run his fingers through it, feel how soft it is, like puppy fur or duckling down. He breathes heavily while he sleeps, and the rhythm is similar to the tide crashing against the shore. He's outlined in silver, at this hour, and Dirk wishes he could snap a picture, or paint him in oils.

Dirk starts moving to stand up, and then pauses, thinking better of it. Instead, he snuggles down deeper into the sheets, and brings a hand to the back of Ford's head. Dirk whispers, "Hey, sweetheart."

Paranoid people are rarely heavy sleepers. Ford's eyes blink open, and he looks up at Dirk, eyebrows raised. "Hmm?"

"I'm going out," says Dirk, keeping his voice low. "Gonna go on a run, make myself tired, maybe shower. Back in a bit." He swallows, and feels his face heat, but refuses to think this was a bad idea. The shadows cover his blush, anyway. "Okay?"

Ford nods into his pillow, and lazily moves his arm to Dirk's shoulder. He doesn't pull him down, or push him away; he just sort of holds him there, and gives him a squeeze. "Key's under the fifth board to the left of the..." Ford fights a yawn, and brings his hand back to cover it. "The doorframe. On the porch."

He dips his head to kiss Ford's shoulder, and Ford does little but hum. By the time Dirk puts on clothes and sneaks out the window, Ford is fast asleep once more.

Dirk falls to the ground like a leaf in autumn, spinning slowly as he goes to take in his surroundings. The Shack looks like one huge, black triangle, at this time of night. The window at the front of the attic is a triangle, too; the whole thing looks eerie and purposeful, just the way a Mysterious Shack should. He looks out into the forest, where the pine trees stand still as palace guards. It's chilly, but there's no wind. It's dark, but there's a bright half moon above him. Dirk moves to the forest at a trot, not aiming to twist an ankle on unfamiliar terrain.

In Disney's  _ Snow White,  _ every rotten tree had looked like a gaping maw, and every clump of bushes had contained a dozen eyes. Dirk saw that movie before he had ever seen a tree in person, and the image presents itself now, as he weaves between trunks and boulders. He expects a slice of horror, out in the trees this late, but there are no screaming violins. Other than the occasional hoot of a distant owl, there is no sound at all. There is no rhythm, like there would be with the sea. Only stillness.

His breath grows loud in his ears, like he's listening to himself on headphones. The silence of the forest is more oppressive than being pinned would be, and it makes him speed up. When he meets an obstacle, he always lists right, trying to circle the Shack instead of getting lost and having to spy above the canopy. He feels like the only living being in the forest, and because he knows that isn't true, he finds himself growing uneasy.

It's quiet, supplies his study of popular culture. Too quiet.

Even though he's ostensibly running in a circle, he has yet to recognize a single landmark. Nature is too wild, maybe, or the light is too low. Maybe he's going in more of a curlicue. Either way, when he finally rushes out into a clearing, it's a surprise.

The half-moon is a brilliant white, after this long time in the dark. Dirk can only assume there are rich greens and deep browns around him, because he can only see black and white, like he's stuck in ancient celluloid. To his left, there's a log, horizontal and slightly buried in the grass, perfect for sitting on. To his right, there's a shrub, one long branch reaching out to nothing.

No, not a shrub. Dirk moves toward it, and feels a weak breeze rustle the leaves on the ground. The limb doesn't move, and flecks of it glitter in the light. Stone, then, shaped unnaturally. A statue.

Dirk breathes steadily, and feels his heart rate slow. Barring the owl he can hear and the breeze he can occasionally feel, he's the only moving thing in the forest. There is moss on the statue's one eye, and it makes Dirk blink in sympathy, as if he could clear it away from his own face. What he thought was a limb  _ is _ a limb, a hand reaching out to nothing. It's wearing a top hat with a tuft of grass by the ribbon, like a cluster of feathers or ornate beaded pin.

He doesn't need to ask if this is Bill Cipher. He does need to know why he's here, so close to Ford, reaching out to shake hands. To make a deal.

"You lost," says Dirk, and it's like shouting in a soundproofed room. He feels it like pressure instead of sound, and it makes him suck in a breath. The statue remains still, unblinking, and stone.

_ You lost, _ thinks Dirk, nerves buzzing along his skin.  _ Ford killed you. He's earned his happy ending, so go ahead and sit on your top hat, fuckstick. _

Ten minutes later, he's flying into Ford's room, leaving the hidden key right where it is. He pulls off his shirt in one motion, sweat cooling on his skin. Ford has shifted, and Dirk can see light reflecting off of his open eyes. Dirk whispers, "Hey."

"Hey," says Ford, voice little more than a grumble. "Come here for a moment."

Shirtless, sweaty, and close to shivering, Dirk moves across the room to Ford's side of the bed. Ford brings a hand to Dirk's face, and pulls him close. He pauses, just before their lips can meet, and Dirk watches as Ford's gaze bounces from Dirk's right eye to his left. It's only the briefest hesitation, and it ends in a warm, soft kiss, but it makes Dirk think of that statue. Of how, the night they met, Ford demanded to see his eyes.

"Welcome back," mutters Ford, smiling sleepily. He settles back into bed, arms wrapped around his pillow. His back, broad and strong, is outlined in white light and shadow.

They have time, Dirk knows, to talk about this. It's late, and he's successfully tuckered himself out. There's no rush. "Good to be here," he says.

Dirk showers mindlessly, using whatever cake of soap he can find first. It smells like eucalyptus, and it makes his skin practically squeak. He's only just arrived, and he's a guest in Ford's home. A lot has happened, between their romantic kebabs-and-poetry night in an alien wilderness and now. He doesn't want to make Ford uncomfortable; he wants to make Ford safe.

Ten minutes later, he's sliding into the sheets again, snaking one arm around Ford's back, the other one pulling him from the pillow to Dirk's chest. It's not clear if Ford is awake when he resettles, and Dirk isn't sure whether it's his own presence or the familiar scent of his own soap that has Ford's defenses down. Either way, Dirk can feel his own heartbeat slow down, matching the pace of Ford's.

There's no doubt in Dirk's mind that Gravity Falls is a weird place. But maybe, with him there, it doesn't have to be a dangerous one. Not to Ford Pines. At the very least, not anymore.


	5. Summer Fling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all of the kind comments and kudos! I'd like to give a special shout-out to whomever made the Homestuck work skin for AO3, and to everyone who has made coding guides for pesterlogs. Thank you for your hard work.

Two weeks pass.

Dirk's life, up until very recently, has been a lesson in "hurry up and wait." The Medium is the most obvious and painful example of this; being the self-proclaimed "plans guy" is a more general piece of evidence spanning all of his first sixteen years. Now that he is where he wants to be, and with whom he wants to be, he finds himself anxious for no reason other than prior harsh experience.

Good things don't just  _ happen  _ to Dirk Strider. And if they do, they spook and run off pretty damn quickly.

The first time there's a knock on the front door, Dirk flashsteps to the side of it, sword already in hand. Stan screams, and Ford's hand is on his gun before defusing the situation, instead of escalating it.

"It's the mail," Ford explains, hands outstretched in a soothing gesture. "The mail arrives at this time, every morning but Sunday."

"Put the freakin' sword away, genius," yells Stan, volume stuck at one hundred. "I want my magazines!"

Later, when Dirk is trying to hide his embarrassment behind a can of soda, Ford commiserates. "I didn't expect it the first few times, either. The last thing I want is to have a government employee on my front step."

"I have a PO box, Ford. Like, you know, a sane person. Why does the government know where you live?" Asks Dirk, glancing at the latest issue of  _ Gold Chains for Old Men. _ "And—question, there's no wrong answer, but do you have any jewelry you haven't shown me?"

Ford's face is caught between amusement and something bitter. "It's a long, complicated story. Suffice it to say that, while I was out travelling between dimensions, Stanley thought it would be best to keep the Shack under my name. And then, from what I gather, he decided to keep my name in general." Ford crosses his arms, displeased at the idea. "For thirty years, Stanley was Stanford Pines, Man of Mystery and Hawker of Garbage from my home."

"Man of Mystery," says Stan, thumbing through the long, white, less-exciting envelopes. "Payer of Bills, Baffler of Cops, and Sole Guardian of All Your Junk, Stanford."

Ford scoffs, and moves to throw out a flimsy sheet of coupons. "I can count the number of bills you paid on one hand, and I wouldn't even need the extra finger."

"Don't  _ throw away  _ coupons!" Stan reaches for them, still louder than he has any need to be. "You're throwing away free money!"

They continue to bicker, and Dirk watches them, wondering if there's more aggression here than meets the eye. But later, when they're all sitting around the living room—Ford with a book, Stan with a magazine, Dirk with a Buzzfeed listicle—it's calm, and not tense at all. He wonders if this is simply how brothers act, outside of the end of the world.

The next morning, the mail comes, and he only tenses up a little. Ford brings a hand to the back of Dirk's neck, and they get through the next twenty seconds together, in quiet understanding.

-

The apartment that Dirk shares with his friends is big, as far as apartments go. They each have their own rooms, as well as private bathrooms—a necessity, for him. So, the Shack's one bathroom, with unfinished wood planks and a drain that's more rust than metal, is... not great.

"There's no lock," says Dirk, pointing to the bare doorframe. "Or even anything I could move to barricade it."

Ford squints at the door, and rubs his chin. "There was no need for it, when I lived alone. There was no one who could barge in, other than Fiddleford, and he wasn't the type."

Dirk looks at Ford, immediately forgetting about doors and latches. "Who?"

Ford looks back at him, apparently equally surprised. "Fiddleford. Surely I've told you about him."

Dirk bites back his immediate response of  _ No you fucking haven't,  _ and goes over every conversation they've shared. When they first met, Ford had made it sound like he alone stood between his universe and its total destruction. Now that Dirk has met Stan, he pretty much knows why Ford spun it that way. Ford didn't talk about friends or lovers at all, back then—there were other things to do, mouth-wise. This little admission of editing, though, still feels like it's coming too late.

"I think," says Dirk, voice flat, "that I would remember you saying you had a roommate."

Ford looks into the middle distance as he also, no doubt, goes through their conversations. "I could have sworn—well, regardless, yes. Fiddleford helped me in researching Gravity Falls. He even helped me to assemble the portal, before he was scared off of the project."

"Right." Dirk would have absolutely remembered Ford mentioning a roommate who helped with his work. In Dirk's mind, no one helped Ford with his work; Dirk still feels like a guest, down in the lab, and he's been sleeping in Ford's bed for seven nights. "So. A partner."

"A brilliant mechanical engineer," agrees Ford. His smile is maddeningly soft. "We were roommates in college, and I don't need to tell you how lucky I felt, meeting someone of similar ambitions in that educational cul-de-sac. Backupsmore was almost entirely a waste of time, except that I met him. When I began searching for the Grand Unified Theory of Weirdness, I knew that he—what are you doing?"

Dirk, who has already ditched his shirt, is pulling off his sneakers. "Taking a shower."

Dirk can feel Ford's eyes follow him as he moves. He tosses his shoes and socks into the corner, and undoes his belt before Ford says, "What, right now?"

"Showers help me think," says Dirk, adopting the tone of explaining something to an idiot. "And I need to think about how you have a brilliant ex-boyfriend from college, who  _ lived _ here, whom I  _ didn't know about _ — _ " _

"What?" Ford's voice cracks, and Dirk's jeans hit the linoleum. "That's—what are you—a partner in science, helping me to discover things for the greater good of humanity, not—for goodness' sake, he was  _ married,  _ at the time!"

Dirk kicks his jeans into the same corner, and crosses his arms, begrudgingly returning to the conversation. "Sure."

To his credit, Ford looks genuinely chagrined. For a moment, he looks at Dirk's bare shoulders, before returning to Dirk's eyes. In the back of his mind, where Dirk isn't currently annoyed, he finds the little sidetrack of Ford's to be reassuring.

"You've done this before," says Ford. "Assuming that other men, or beings, are past romantic partners. Why?"

Dirk shrugs, and continues to look as blank and serious as he can, clad only in bright red boxer briefs. "You—when you talk about your work, you talk about it like it's the most important thing." Dirk examines his nails, and picks at a cuticle with his thumb. "Other people being involved with something so personal for you is—you know."

"Science is a collaborative effort," says Ford, still obviously confused. "I don't want to have to reinvent the wheel every time I make a quadrobattery. We stand atop the shoulders of giants, Dirk, not atop notches on the bedpost."

Dirk brings his eyes up, again, and sees Ford. He takes in the confusion, as well as the body posture—angled toward Dirk, tense against the outside world, but protective of him. They're standing in the doorway, easily close enough to touch. The bathroom still smells like smoke, from when Ford "shaved" that morning. There's a small line of stubble that he missed, up near his right sideburn. Dirk knows, from experience, the way that stubble would feel against the palm of his hand.

"I know what you looked like, back then," says Dirk. "You can't tell me that everyone in the eighties was blind. I would have read about it on Wikipedia."

Ford's brow goes from being scrunched in a frown to being smooth as a mirror when his face falls. "That's," he starts, and then is seemingly too overcome to continue. He rubs his face with both hands, and eventually manages, "Dirk, that's a ridiculous thing to say. You're aware of that, right?"

Dirk digs in his heels, and begins to list off his reasons on his fingers. "You were a boombox away from being  _ Say Anything  _ era John Cusak, but scruffier, and grunge was cutting edge, back then, only hitting the mainstream in the 1990s. You talk about science like you want to have its baby, which I can relate to. If I think up a  _ ménage à trois _ situation with you, your brilliant mechanic friend, and science, can I be blamed? Late nights in the lab, engine grease on the turtleneck, I get it, that's the dream—"

"Dirk," says Ford, face still behind one hand, but half a smile clearly visible. "Your argument is that I, as an unwashed, grungy scientist, was going around seducing people as I was trying to solve life's greatest mysteries. Is that correct?"

"He lived with you," says Dirk, ignoring the ridiculous way Ford twists his words around. "And he didn't try to stab the toaster, I'm betting, not even once."

"It's our third toaster," says Ford, and brings his hands to Dirk's bare shoulders. Dirk tries to ignore how warm they are, and fails. "That overcomplicated model in the kitchen. I shot the first two."

Dirk feels something like hope in his chest, and swallows. "Oh."

"Here's what I think," says Ford, and takes a breath to find his words. Dirk, without his shades, enjoys the view in full-color, 1080p. "I think that you are being ridiculous. Fiddleford is a dear friend to me, even now, after all of these years. The idea that there is someone waiting in the shadows to sweep me off my feet is unreasonable, because that doesn't happen to someone twice."

Dirk isn't so far off the rails that he asks who the other person was. He knows, from context, that Ford doesn't mean Bill.

"And finally," says Ford, dropping a kiss on Dirk's hairline, "that you think getting engine grease on my turtleneck in the lab is a dream come true says more about you than it does me, or any of my made-up suitors."

Dirk frowns, but concedes the point. "Maybe I'm... yeah. Maybe."

"Take a shower if you like," says Ford. "I'll try not to get propositioned on my way downstairs."

Dirk punches him lightly in the chest, and Ford laughs.

The shower is a short one, by Dirk's standards. He doesn't have his pumice stone, or any of his conditioners. Instead of thinking about Ford's romantic history, and splitting hairs about the conversation they'd just had, he considers the future. Summer in Oregon isn't as hot as he'd like, but he brought a few sweaters with him. There are still things to see, and turtlenecks to get engine grease on.

-

It's three in the morning, and Dirk and Ford are on the roof, charting the stars to see if anything's changed from last week. Usually, things stay where they are meant to be, but Ford remembers a night where all the constellations were in freefall, and wants to predict the next such occurrence.

"They weren't stars exactly," Ford had explained as they set up the telescope. "In the sense that they weren't distant explosions of hydrogen and helium. But I didn't have the tools in hand to discover what they truly were."

Dirk snorted at "tools in hand," but helped to assemble the inclinometer.

This had been at midnight. Now, things are decidedly more casual. The stars stay fixed above them, and Dirk has three fingers up. In the interest of fairness, he'd started with a one-finger handicap.

"Never have I ever," says Ford, "ridden a metal roller coaster."

"You're kidding me." Dirk puts down one finger, cursing Jake's insistence at the Six Flags a few years ago. "Wooden ones are way scarier."

"They were all that were available, growing up," he says, unscrewing the lid of their thermos of hot chocolate. "And by the time metal ones were in vogue, I was old enough not to care. Stanley only went on one, as far as I know, and that was to impress a girl."

Ford's watch beeps, and Dirk checks on Orion. Still there. "By throwing up on her?"

"By throwing up on her," he agrees. "Your turn."

Dirk looks out over the forest, and watches a lone eyebat flutter above the canopy. "Never have I ever... owned a car."

Ford sighs, and lowers a finger. "I have, albeit briefly. Drove it all the way here from Backupsmore, only to lose it to a monster immediately upon arrival. It was the first impossible thing I saw in Gravity Falls, actually."

"What a welcome," says Dirk. He holds out a hand for the thermos, and Ford passes it to him. The steam flows up out of it, like a small metal volcano. "What kind of car?"

"A 1971 Fiat 850 sport coupe," he says, wistful. "A treat to myself, after I finished my twelfth Ph. D. It didn't last five months."

Dirk knows nothing about cars, but he knows what it's like, losing a cool machine to nature. "I'm sorry, sweetheart." He pats Ford's knee, and takes a sip of hot chocolate.

"Gosh, that car was fast," Ford continues, looking up at the heavens. "And so smooth, it was like driving a magic carpet. Most cars back then were as big as boats, but not that one. I wonder if Fiat is still making sportscars?"

"We'll have to ask Google-sensei later."

A rogue gust of wind threatens their notes, so the game is on pause for a few moments while they put down paperweights and the thermos. When it passes, Ford leans back, taking in the vast night sky. Dirk looks up, and tries to see what Ford sees: plotted vectors, data points, distant explosions. The chemical makeup of the atmosphere, maybe, and how different energies interact with it. Is it easier or harder to get a sunburn in Gravity Falls?

"This is nice," says Ford. "I'm not used to having company, for tests like this."

Dirk knows an invitation when he hears one, and moves to be next to Ford, their legs lined up and their shoulders brushing. Ford brings his arm around Dirk, and it doesn't feel like the first time they've been out here, together. It feels natural, and right.

"I'm having fun," Dirk says. It sounds too active and energetic, somehow, to describe this deep peace as "fun," but that's the only word he has.

There are no shooting stars, but there are a few eyebats flitting about in the distance. It's fairly still, and vaguely spooky out. The desire to have a feelings jam is palpable in the air. Dirk wonders if Ford feels it, too—that magic of after-midnight, where you want to be honest because subterfuge is exhausting.

"This isn't what I was expecting," says Dirk.

He feels Ford tense up next to him.   
  
"Not like that. I wasn't hoping for giant bugs and life-threatening situations, again, I promise. I was just pretty worried about coming here." Dirk is understating it enormously. "At first, I was worried about finding you at all, but once I found the Shack, it became this maddening ordeal to just wait it out until you came back. And I kept thinking about the bug dimension where we met, and how you were totally down to stick your face into danger, and how I wasn't around to lie on top of you until you didn't do that."

"I'm not the adrenaline junkie you seem to think I am," says Ford, lightly enough. "Those were calculated risks."

"Your calculator sucks," Dirk says, and brings a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes of sleep. "That's not what I wanted to say. What I'm saying is, this is... being here, with you, it's really nice. Fighting bugs together and being, like,  _ housemates, _ those are really different things. So I'm... glad."

Ford squeezes Dirk's shoulder, but continues to look out into the stars. Dirk is grateful for the privacy, so he can figure out what the hell he's trying to say unobserved.

Dirk's mouth twitches into a smile. "You were totally going to backflip off of this roof, weren't you."

"That's," Ford starts, and then clears his throat. When he speaks again, his tone of voice is much more commanding. "That wouldn't be a logical reaction to what you were saying. I was simply... concerned, about your expectations."

"Sure, Mr. Spock."

"From what I've gathered," says Ford, no doubt referencing actual notes he's written, "you have spent half of your time here very happy, and the other half confused, angry, or armed for combat. Is that correct, would you say?"

"I don't know how houses work," Dirk admits. He knows it's obvious, but he also knows that saying it out loud is important. He wants to be clear that he's aware he's messing up. "Mail, and running a store, and sharing a bathroom. I thought—maybe, if I were bad enough at it, you wouldn't... you would be less than psyched to have me hanging around."

Ford's chest rumbles when he laughs, and it makes Dirk relax, like he's next to a giant purring kitten. Ford says, "It just reminds me of my first few weeks, back in this dimension. It didn't occur to me that you would be worried about all this—this is simply what acclimation to Gravity Falls is like." He looks over at Dirk, but Dirk continues to stare at his own shoes. "Constant vigilance is important. Even now, after the apocalypse has been averted."

Dirk considers this. He wants to believe that Ford is being objective, but knows that he isn't. Instead, maybe this weird balance is actually fine. Two weirdos in a logic-defying town, studying the unnamed and unseen, staying up late and enabling each others' bizarre habits. Dirk has never met a normal person, he's pretty sure, and he doesn't know what he would do if he did. Get the hell out of there, probably, and make sure he couldn't be followed.

He's learned a lot about Ford, these past few weeks. He's shared much less about himself. Ford makes his life and his adventures sound fun, and even amusing. Dirk is a storyteller; he knows that he has no chance of making his life story sound anything other than hellishly depressing. There aren't any happy family reunions, or brilliant triumphs over evil. At best, there's the story of him pretending he isn't being hugged on top of a bombed-out skyscraper.

Being a listener instead of a talker has worked so far. Maybe it'll keep working. Dirk is paranoid and inscrutable, but maybe those can be pros instead of cons, to the right person.

He rests his head on Ford's shoulder, and thinks about how to explain how good he feels. How calm. Instead, he says, "Your turn."

"Hmm." Ford checks his timer, and makes a checkmark on a piece of paper. The pencil threatens to roll off the roof, so he sandwiches it between two shingles. "Never have I ever isolated a gluon."

"Well," says Dirk, putting down a finger, "now we have plans for tomorrow sorted."

-

Stan opens the door without knocking, and immediately flings his hand over his eyes. "Oh, God! It's so much worse than I'd imagined! Obscenity!  _ Indecency!  _ Put some clothes on!"

Ford is sitting up in bed, clad in a t-shirt, re-reading a worn copy of  _ Quantum? I Hardly Know 'Um. _ Dirk is resting his head on Ford's chest, scrolling through his phone. 

Stan shudders. "Reading in bed. It's just unnatural."

"You think reading at all is unnatural, Stanley," says Ford, marking his place with a scrap of paper. "What can I do for you?"

Dirk waves his phone vaguely at Stan by way of greeting, and continues reading his backlog of messages from the Alpha group chat. Apparently, Jane had a successful date with some cool new guy, and won't give them the details. Roxy is trying to play gumshoe, and Jake is occasionally losing track of the conversation and sending pictures of where he is in Hanoi. Standard stuff.

"I've gotta run down to the store and get some things," says Stan. "Breakfast stuff that isn't bran-related. The kids don't care about being regular."

Dirk feels Ford's muscles tense in surprise, and hums dissatisfaction. He likes a firm pillow, but not that firm.

"The kids?" Ford looks down at Dirk's phone, which Dirk barely angles up. "Good God. What day is it?"

Dirk closes the chat, and opens the calendar app while Stan keeps talking. "It's today, genius. We were going to pick them up at the bus stop, remember?"

"June seventeenth," Ford reads off of Dirk's phone. He then makes to stand up, and Dirk flops off of him, making another annoyed noise. This isn't the way most mornings have gone, and he likes the slow, cozy routine. "June seventeenth! Oh my gosh, time sure flies, doesn't it?"

Stan looks at Dirk, and Dirk realizes that he probably has awful bedhead. He runs a hand through his hair, self-conscious.

"Uh-huh," says Stan. "Anyway, I'm going to pick up some sugar pops and junk. You need anything?"

Ford walks around the room, collecting the notes he writes on bits of scrap paper. After a moment, he pulls his bookmark out of his book, adding it to the stack on his desk. "I asked you for uranium the last time you went shopping. Were they out of stock?"

Dirk rolls onto his stomach, semi-discreetly picking up his shirt from the floor next to the bed. "Who's coming?"

"They're out of stock forever," answers Stan first, before putting his hands on his hips and beaming. "The kids! Mabel and Dipper Pines, the Mystery Twins of Gravity Falls."

Over the past two weeks and change, Dirk learned these names. He saw pictures around the Shack, and mentally relabeled the attic as "the twins' room." The news that he has only hours to think up how to impress them feels like a sudden snowball to the face.

If Stan can see Dirk's panic, he doesn't say anything. Instead, he leaves with a simple, "Four o'clock, pants mandatory," and closes the door behind him.

Dirk pulls on his shirt, and swings his legs to the side of the bed, the better to hunch over and bury his face in his hands. It's a full ten seconds before Ford stops wandering around the room collecting his notes, and sits next to Dirk, putting a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Your niece and nephew are coming today," says Dirk into his hands.

Ford pats him. "Children can be intimidating, I know. But Mabel and Dipper are special. They're certainly special to me."

_ That's the problem, _ Dirk's heart screams. Aloud, he sighs. "What are they into? I stopped studying this century's culture around two thousand and eight, and now I'm officially two thousand and late."

Ford chuckles the way he does when he doesn't want to ask what the fuck Dirk is talking about. He chuckles that way pretty often, but Dirk doesn't find it irritating. He's right, to ignore Dirk's ridiculous melodrama. Dirk wishes _ Dirk  _ could ignore Dirk's ridiculous melodrama.

"It'll be fine," Ford assures him. "They're good kids, and you're—well, you! There's no need to tie yourself in knots. I'm sure they'll take to you right away."

Dirk takes a deep breath, and finally lets his hands fall. "Yeah?"

Ford kisses his hair, right above his ear. "Yeah. Now, go take the first shower. I have notes to organize."

Dirk kisses Ford's cheek, sends out a vague SOS to his friends, and makes his way to the bathroom. In his entire life, no one had ever taken to him right away. Dirk Strider is the anchovies of people; he is an acquired taste. But if Ford and Stan seem to like him, maybe his luck will hold with Mabel and Dipper. There is a sliver of hope there, that all the Pines are genetically predisposed to put up with him.

At three thirty, Stan and Ford hop in the car to pick up the kids. Dirk stays at the Shack, right up until three thirty-two, when he decides to go on a run to clear his head. He needs to defragment his mind, maybe restart it with some swordfighting practice. Mostly, he needs to not freak out.

He thinks about contacting his friends with more than a vague "Oh, no, more family to meet," but he really doesn't want to. Something about this feels personal, and precious. He wants to meet these kids, win them over, and prove... something. Prove something to Ford, about how he's good with families, and understands all the necessary social dynamics.

It occurs to Dirk that, while he mentioned being from the future and being alone, he never explicitly explained his familial situation. As in, that he doesn't have one that makes any sense. Even if Dave were his standard-biological brother instead of his ectobiological one, he could hardly be said to make sense. Should Ford meet Rose? Would Ford  _ survive _ meeting Rose?

Dirk pushes those thoughts aside and runs through what he knows about being a kid. Junk food is covered, Stan already thought of that. Video games? Dirk likes video games, barring a notable exception. So do kids. There's something there, maybe. Does the Shack even have a computer?

When he returns, the sun is low in the sky, and he's got a healthy glow about him. He hasn't gone to seed entirely, post-Game; he works out when he's nervous, the times when he's nervous and not also in the fetal position. He opens the front door, and heads to the kitchen, seeking a glass of water.

He hears new, higher voices, and slows down enough to take in the scene before he formally enters the room. It's almost unbearably wholesome; two bright-eyed thirteen-year-olds flipping through a pink scrapbook, flanked on either side by Ford and Stan. The scrapbook is bedazzled within an inch of its life, and some of the trinkets taped to it keep the pages from lying down flat. The current pages have a Star of David theme, and the little girl is excitedly talking about her "Torah portion," whatever that means. Dirk hesitates in the doorway, but it's too late—Ford's looking up from the photos and glitter glue, and smiling expectantly at him.

The girl—Mabel—continues, "And then Rabbi Chutzpah said, 'you don't have to sing at the  _ top _ of your lungs the  _ whole _ time,' but I was all—"

"Dirk!" Ford sits up straight in his chair, and holds out a hand to him. "Come in, sit down. Mabel was just telling us about becoming a bat mitzfah!"

Mabel blinks at being interrupted, then follows Ford's eyes to the doorway. The boy, Dipper, also looks up. Stan keeps one eye on the scrapbook, as he isn't surprised to see Dirk and is visibly impressed with the use of sequins.

Dirk swallows, because his mouth is dry. He doesn't make a gulping "uh oh" noise like a cartoon character. He nods to the younger twins, says "Hey," then goes to the fridge to grab a bottle of water. He doesn't want to leave Ford hanging entirely, though, and takes his hand when he finally settles down next to him.

The rhythm of the conversation has been totally obliterated. Dirk takes a sip of water, and the crinkle of the plastic bottle fills the room.

"Um," starts Dipper. "Are we just... not going to address the blonde elephant in the room?"

Dirk gives him a look. "Ouch."

Dipper holds up his hands, pacifying. "Not like that! Just—hi, my name's Dipper, who are you?"

"Kids," says Ford, and brings an arm around Dirk's shoulders. The easy touches of the past weeks cause Dirk to relax a little even now, under the intense scrutiny of Ford's family. "This is someone I want you to meet."

Dipper and Mabel's gaze bounces between Ford and Dirk as if they're watching a tennis match. A tennis match that, judging by their blank expressions of shock, is extremely weird and unsettling.

"As you know," continues Ford, warm and solid at Dirk's side, "I spent a lot of time travelling between dimensions, before Stanley brought me home. During that time, I had many adventures—some exciting, some incredibly dangerous, and some..." Ford shoots another smile at Dirk, and Dirk feels his mouth twitch as he tries to reciprocate. "Some that brought unexpected good fortune my way."

Mabel gasps, and puts her hands over her mouth. "Oh, my gosh."

"What?" Dipper turns to his sibling in confusion, then looks back at Ford. "What, you met him in another dimension? I never read about anyone named 'Dirk' in your journals!"

Dirk looks between the kids, and then at Stan, who raises his eyebrows meaningfully at him. Dirk takes it to mean,  _ Be grateful my young nephew didn't read about your romantic night with Ford, so you don't have to go to prison forever. Prison sucks. _

Dirk returns a look that he hopes says, _ Thank you for not killing me earlier with your guns, but if you wanted to do it now, that would be totally fine. _

Stan shrugs, communicating  _ No dice,  _ and takes a pull of soda. Dirk fiddles with the label on his bottle of water, and tunes back in to the actually audible conversation happening around him.

Dipper asks, "So, is Dirk your apprentice, or...?"

"No, no, no," Ford says, clearly amused. "That's still a position I'm hoping you'll take, some day. While Dirk has helped me in the lab over the past few weeks, and we are of the same level of intelligence, he hasn't studied the nature of Gravity Falls' mysteries. He's... more of a collaborator, I suppose."

Something about the way Ford says "same level of intelligence" makes Dirk smirk, and roll his eyes. Before Dipper can ask his next question, Dirk says, "Thanks, honey."

Which would have been a totally normal thing to say, any other afternoon at the kitchen table in the Shack. But this afternoon, Dipper's eyes narrow, and Mabel pushes her cheeks together and gasps again.

"Oh my gosh," she says again, eyes wide and sparkling. "Grunkle Ford,  _ no way!" _

Dirk's smile softens, and he gently nudges Ford with his elbow. "'Grunkle,' huh? That's pretty cute."

Dipper looks like he's mentally crunching some numbers. "'Honey'? Grunkle Ford, what—what are you saying?"

"Uh." Dirk takes hold of the hand on his shoulder, and applies his energy toward being less chickenshit. "Yeah. It's nice to meet you, too, Dipper. And Mabel. My name's Dirk Strider. I met Ford a while back. We only just found each other again. He's not on Facebook, which made it a pain in the—butt."

Stan laughs, and takes another sip of soda. It is possible he is playing a drinking game. Dirk can guess that the rules aren't particularly flattering.

Ford presses gamely on, by all appearances unaware that things are going up in flames. "I don't know what you kids would call it. Dirk and I haven't settled on a term we both like—"

"Euphemisms are dumb, Ford," says Dirk, eyes on his water bottle. "We aren't 'stepping out together,' we're just—together."

Mabel slams her hands on the table with a loud bang. Everyone jumps—Stan barely manages not to get any soda on the scrapbook. Dipper grabs the front of his vest, as if he's having a heart attack. "Mabel, what is it?"

"Grunkle Ford, congratulations!" She stands up on her seat and pumps her fists into the air, smile dazzling and braces gleaming. "I can't believe you're getting  _ married!" _

Dirk feels Ford jump, hand clenching on his shoulder. Dirk has frozen in place, face blank, his heart rate reaching triple digits. Stan is finishing his soda in one, long pull, and looks so smug that Dirk wonders if he just won a bet with someone.

"What?" Ford stands as well, level with Mabel as she dances on her chair. "Hold on now, Mabel, let's not get ahead of ourselves!"

Dirk remains a statue in his seat. Dipper is staring at him, open-mouthed, and Dirk has no idea what would reassure him. Any plan he'd thought of during his run, any hilarious joke or cool trick he might do to impress them, all of it is falling to dust in the face of Mabel's joyful screaming about flower arrangements.

"I haven't proposed!" Ford yells. "Don't stand on the chairs, they'll break!"

"You're going to propose?" Mabel yells back. "That's even better! We can plan it together! It'll go viral, and you'll get a power couple name, like Dird! Or Fork! Ooh, or Dunkle Stridord!"

Dipper brings his hands to the scrapbook and snaps it shut, finally schooling his shocked expression into something less comical. Dirk watches as Dipper puts the scrapbook into his backpack, and then stands up from the table.

"It was nice to meet you, Dirk," Dipper says again, unnecessarily. "I'm going to go... nap. For a while. Mabel, you're sleepy too, right?"

Mabel does not look sleepy. She's miming putting a boutonniere on Ford's lapel, and humming sweetly over Ford's continued bafflement. But when she locks eyes with Dipper, she promptly feigns a yawn.

"I guess," she says, finally hopping down from the chair and grabbing her bag. "Long bus rides! The worst!"

"We'll see you at dinner," finishes Dipper. They run up the stairs, Mabel laughing, Dipper oddly determined.

When the distant attic door slams, the house settles down into quiet once more. Ford collapses back onto his chair, and looks at Dirk with wide eyes.

"I'd forgotten," says Ford, adjusting his glasses, "just how much energy those kids have."

"I didn't," says Stan. Then, he holds out his hand, palm up. "I also didn't forget that you owe me ten bucks. As if Mabel the Matchmaker was going to waste any time trying to plan your wedding! Easiest money I've made in a while."

Annoyed, Ford pulls his wallet out of his pocket. "She wasn't listening to me. I only wanted to introduce Dirk, not cause all that hubbub."

"Yeah, well, you did both." When Ford offers the money, Stan crinkles the bill in his fist, and points at Dirk. "How are you holding up, pal? You remembering to breathe?"

Dirk takes a deep, steadying breath. His shoulders are up by his ears, and at some point, he crushed the water bottle in his hand. "Yep."

Stan slings an arm over the back of his chair, smiling wide and easy. Clearly, childlike chaos is his element—he looks post-spa relaxed, in comparison to Ford's exasperation and Dirk's bowstring tension. "Meeting the family's always tough. I remember one time, Carol Palmer brought me home to her folks for dinner. She'd never said she had six older brothers! Imagine being stared down by an entire basketball team." He shudders. "I lost her number, after that."

"Charming," says Ford, running a hand through his hair. He stands from his seat, neatly pushing it in along with Dipper's and Mabel's. "Well, if that's all the visiting time we get before dinner, I'm going back downstairs." He looks at Dirk, and smiles, slightly embarrassed for some reason. "If you'd like to join me, it's sure to be quieter down there."

Dirk blinks up at him. "Of course," he says, surprised Ford even asks. That was their ordinary routine, before today. Exactly how much do these young kids upset the balance of this place? Dirk stands, and follows Ford to the closest secret entrance to the basement.

"Dinner's at six thirty," Stan calls after them. "I'll pick up the pizzas at six."

-

timaeusTestified [TT] RIGHT NOW opened memo on board GT: Ive done stickied my trousers!!

TG: cmon dude was it REALLY THAT AWFUL

TG: i mean REEEEAAALLY

TT: Allow me to paint you a picture with my words.

TT: The Mystery Shack is not a big place.

TT: If Ford posted it on Airbnb, he might use the words "quaint" and "cozy" in the property description, and he would be right to do so.

TT: Beyond literally hiding in the walls, there is virtually no chance that I won't have to make awkward small talk with thirteen-year-olds on a daily, maybe even hourly basis for the rest of the summer.

GG: Goodness! What a pickle.

GG: Is there a reason in particular you're acting like you're a billion years old?

GG: They aren't unknowable eldritch abominations, Dirk. They're teens.

GG: You were also once a teen.

TG: we were all teens!

TG: And yhah there was some bad with the good there! obvs

TG: but look on the brite side!

TT: Enlighten me.

TG: CMON dirk this is ELEMENTARY MY DER BUTTHEAD

TG: *dear

TG: ford fiesta introcuded you to these rowdy teens as his ~*~*~boyf~*~*~

GG: He did!

GG: DeviantArt-style tildes and asterisks and all.

GG: Honestly Dirk I thought you would be on cloud nine, after that.

GG: I am not seeing the disaster that you are.

Dirk looks up from his phone, and studies Ford.

They're down in the lab, and the call to pizza is imminent. Ford is bent over his work station, tracing large, concentric circles with a brass compass. Occasionally, he mutters to himself, explaining what he's doing as he's doing it in order to keep it all linear in his mind. Blue arcs of electricity link two poles in front of him, and as Dirk watches, they grow in intensity and strength. The hairs on Dirk's arm stand on end, all the way from the other side of the room; Ford's hair goes practically Einsteinian.

He doesn't look disappointed, or angry. He just looks busy, the way he always does in the lab.

With a triumphant smile, Ford pulls a lever and throws out the arcs of electricity. Instead of simply travelling between poles A and B, they reach out to an invisible pole C, making a triangle of energy that bridges possibilities. It's not actually "pole C," Dirk knows; it's where pole B would be if Ford had decided to put it there.

On its face, it's impossible, mad-scientist stuff. Ford sees it as fun beginner projects for his nephew, ones he's beta-testing to make sure they're not too dangerous.

Dirk swallows, and holds his phone in two hands. Ford is just so  _ good, _ and kind, and wonderful.

GG: So the guy you're dating has a family. 

GG: They sound nice! You just surprised them. It went as well as can be expected.

TT: I didn't even know he had a twin brother until two weeks ago. This is like meeting Stan times a billion. Two billion, even. One for each bouncing bundle of baffling behavior.

TT: It's not like I was hoping for more of Ford risking his life. I've definitely had enough of that, and I get the feeling that he has, too. But I didn't know that my choices were that, or having him be Mr. fucking Brady.

TT: Can't there be some middle step where neither of us have to worry about impending doom OR having The Talk with a young teenager?

GG: Well sadly Dirk it looks like the answer to that is no.

GG: So what are you going to do about it? Other than pout a bunch.

GG: The first step to acceptance is a bunch of pouting. We all know that.

TT: I don't know, Jane. At the end of the day?

TT: I guess I want to impress them. I want them to like me.

TG: Dirk

TG: Dirk. sweety.

TG: You can fly and you have a cool sword?

Dirk slaps his forehead and curses. Ford turns to look at him, confused, but Dirk waves him away.

TT: Fuck.

TG: easiest self intro ever fi you want to look cool

TG: I am just sayin

TT: Is it too late to pose dramatically and then do a backflip? 

TT: Maybe I could blow something up and then walk away from it without looking back.

TT: Is that still a thing?

GG: How would it not still be a thing?

GG: Explosions still happen. People still walk in directions.

GG: Foolproof.

TG: foolproof

GT: Greetings from saigon everybody!!!

GT: What are we talking about?

TG: jakey! tell dirk to clam his various emojis

GT: Dirk! Clam your various emojis.

GT: Everything okay?

TT: Yeah.

TT: Yeah, I think so.

TT: Thanks, everyone.

GG: Just a note!

GG: I think it would be coolest and received most positively if you didn't blow up anything INSIDE the house.

TG: booooooooo

TT: I'll consider it.

GT: Oh wow is that STILL the memo title?? Cant we change it?

GT: It was TREE SAP.

GT: Youre all horrific horndogs.

TT closed memo.

-

Dirk sits next to Ford at the kitchen table, which means that he's directly across from Dipper. He isn't sure if he's supposed to ignore the fact that Dipper has a notebook hidden under the table, or if he should call attention to it. In the end, it's easier to focus on the pizza.

"So, random question," says Dipper, smiling and picking up a second slice of pepperoni. "Regular sort of getting-to-know-you question. Which Earthlike dimension did you say you were from?"

Dirk takes a sip of orange soda. "I don't think I did say, but in the system Ford uses, it's called AH413-Alpha. I was born in 2409, if that helps give you a better idea."

"Huh." Dipper scribbles something down without looking. "Interesting. You're from the future, then?"

"What happens?" Mabel asks through a mouthful of cheese. "Do we find Bigfoot? Do we make it to Mars? Do we eventually stop making ten new superhero movies every year?"

"Swallow your food, pumpkin," says Stan, also with his mouth full. "You'll choke."

Dirk chews thoughtfully on a piece of pineapple before replying. "It's not an exact one-to-one version of this dimension's future, which, trust me, is a good thing. But if they're anything like each other, they do stop rebooting Spiderman so often."

Mabel nods, satisfied. Dipper clears his throat, and then hands her a piece of paper. She rolls her eyes, but reads off of it.

"He's another question, Dirk," she says, voice flat. "How did you make it to this dimension without using an unstable portal?"

Dirk blinks at her, and then Dipper. "By... using a stable one? Or not even a portal, if you want to split hairs. I don't travel the same way as your 'Grunkle.'"

Next to him, Ford cracks a smile. It does sound a little extra ridiculous, said in Dirk's light drawl.

"Then how  _ do _ you travel?" Asks Dipper. "I thought humans can't travel interdimensionally without really complex machinery, at least not to and from  _ this _ dimension. Unless," he continues, pen poised on his notebook, "you aren't human at all?"

"Now, Dipper," says Ford, giving him a stern look. "Don't be rude."   


That surprises Dirk. It doesn't strike him as a rude question, given all of the things that he's asking these kids to accept at face value. Wondering what the big deal is, Dirk says, "I was human, once. Nowadays, it depends on how you define the term."

Dipper's pen runs off the page. "Wait, what? So you admit that you're not human?" He looks over at Ford, frowning. "Grunkle Ford, are you dating a siren  _ again?" _

Ford sputters into his glass of water, and Dirk blinks. "Uh. No. However, I am going to need that entire story from start to finish."

"After you answer my question." The frown is turned on Dirk, now. "If you aren't human, what are you?"

Everyone is looking at Dirk, now. Ford's eyebrows are raised, and Stan pauses with a can of soda at his lips. Dirk really isn't sure where Ford gets off, being surprised about what Dirk is and isn't. He knows Dirk is immortal, and that humans, by definition, aren't.

"It's a long story," Dirk says to his plate. No one makes to interrupt him, because he's a very unlucky person. So, he squares his shoulders, and looks Dipper in the eye. "When I was sixteen, my world ended, and in order to save my friends and create a new one, I died. When I came back, it was as a godtier player of the Universe-creating Game. So, I don't know if you want to call me a god, a zombie, or a prince, and honestly, I don't care. But I'm not going to lie about being just a normal person. That would be kind of bogus."

Dipper stares at him, thunderstruck. He wordlessly hands Mabel another piece of paper, but she swats it away. 

"Hold on," she says, lighting up with glee. "Dirk, you're a _ prince?  _ Grunkle Ford, you're dating a prince!" She pumps her hand like she's pulling on the horn of a sixteen-wheeler. "Jackpot!"

Ford brings a hand between Dirk's shoulder blades, and Dirk leans back into it, feeling suddenly drained. "I know. He's mentioned it to me in the past." says Ford. His voice gets quieter when he finishes, "The dying part is news to me, however."

"Why didn't you lead with being royalty?" Mabel reverses the first piece of paper Dipper had handed to her, and tries to steal his pen. "Dipper, hand it over! I've gotta start planning this wedding again from scratch!"

"Mabel, knock it off!" Dipper holds his pen out of her reach, and leans away from her while still looking at Dirk. "I still have questions," he says. "In fact, I've got at least twice as many questions as I did before. You're a  _ zombie?" _

Dirk is still working out whether or not he owes Ford an apology. He never asked, reasons a squirmy, uncomfortable part of Dirk's mind. Outwardly, he shrugs, and nods. "Most people I know have died at least once."

"Sheesh," says Stan, leaning on an elbow. "You must be fun at parties."

Dipper looks over at Stan, shocked anew. "Grunkle Stan, you didn't know any of this? You've been living together in the same house for seventeen days!"

Stan shrugs, too, and plays with the tab of his soda. "Eh. He's Ford's guest, you know? It never seemed like a good time to ask if he was an undead abomination."

Dirk snorts. "Nice of you."

"No problem," says Stan, and winks.

After the dinner interrogation looks to be wrapping up, Ford looks to Dirk. It's clear that there's something on his mind, but Dirk doesn't know how to answer any of those questions, yet. So, Dirk collects the plates, and Mabel follows him to the sink. He figures maybe she wants to dry them, but she makes no moves for the kitchen towel, so Dirk just stacks them in the dish drainer. She stares up at him, huge smile slightly unnerving, and he waits for her to speak.

She doesn't. She just keeps smiling at him.

He breaks like fine china. "What?"

"Glad that you asked!" She has her own notebook, now, and her own pen, one with a poof of pink faux fur at the top. "So, Prince Dirk, if you had to pick a color that goes well with white, what would you choose? Asking for a friend!"

Dirk considers this, pleased to have a distraction, and runs the water until it gets warm. "I'm partial to orange," he says, "but I don't want to look like a Dreamcicle."

"Noted!" She writes down "orange" in curly, swirly letters. "Are you from a Christmas house, and if not, are you willing to pretend so we get more presents in winter?"

"Of course I'll pretend," he says. "That Jesus, what a cool baby."

"What flavor cake are we thinking, Your Highness?"

"Just Dirk is fine." He tosses an empty can into the recycling. "Actually, I have a friend who is really anti-cake. Can we have options?"

Mabel frowns, and taps the pen on her chin. The fluff makes her sneeze. "Ah—anti-cake? You really  _ are _ from a strange and distant land."

"He has his reasons," says Dirk, who has no idea what those reasons are. They could really be anything, knowing John.

Mabel clambers onto the countertop and takes a seat, feet swinging and banging the lower cabinet doors. She attends to her notebook in earnest, sketching out an altar made of balloon animals. Dirk glances over at her, when he thinks she isn't paying attention.

He can't figure out why she's here with him instead of in the TV room with everyone else. The only reason  _ he  _ is in here is because he's a coward. He'd rather do chores than explain the circumstances of any of his deaths. Mabel, though—her inner landscape is a total mystery. Dipper, he gets; suspicion is a completely understandable reaction to being suddenly introduced to someone. At dinner, when Dipper was trying to cross-examine him and act through two people to overwhelm him, Dirk saw a kid who was going places. When Dirk looks at Mabel, he sees... a kid. A nice one, but with inscrutable intentions.

Dirk considers his next words while he dries a plate. Mabel beats him to the punch.

"I'm sorry about Dipper," she says.

Dirk looks up at her, eyebrows raised. "Why?"

"Grunkle Ford is really important to him," she says. Then, she flaps her hands in dismay. "He's important to me, too! I love him! But... Grunkle Ford is the  _ author of the journals, _ you know? He means a lot to Dipper."

"Good," says Dirk. Ford's earned at least that, in his opinion. The love and devotion of his family, the concern of his relatives over his bad romantic decisions—that's what's best for Ford, and what will ensure his happiness. The fact that Dirk doesn't know anything about family dynamics is a stumbling block, but not a dealbreaker. This all has the potential to work out into something where everyone is happy, bizarrely enough.

Mabel tilts her head at him. "Dipper thinks you're probably an evil mastermind right now, but that'll go away."

Dirk stacks the dry plates on the counter, right by where Mabel sits. "It's not—I don't mind. Seriously. I'm a stranger with a whack backstory."

"It's not whack!" Mabel pauses. "Well, it's kind of whack. But it's not  _ wiggety _ -whack."

He dries his hands with a clean towel, and looks at her. Two generations removed from Stan, and she still has his optimism. Families, he decides, are wild.

"Mabel," he says, and manages a smile. "Thanks. But I can handle it."

She beams at him. "You're welcome."

He starts to put the dishes away, and before he can think better of it, he blurts, "We aren't engaged, though. Just... so you know."

"Oh, I know," she says, attending once more to her notebook. "Leave that to Mabel."


	6. The Next Level

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kind words and kudos!
> 
> I have recently started a new job, and so will be updating more slowly (hopefully once a week).

The question that Ford wants to ask is still in his eyes over the next few days, but Dirk doesn't bring it up.  _ He knows that it'll be a tough question to answer, whatever form it ends up taking: Wanna explain how you've died, before? Is your immortality conditional, or what? What other things are you lying about by omission, Dirk? _ A few tense days pass, but Ford doesn't end up asking anything. Dirk doesn't know if he's busy thinking up explanations for Dirk's behavior, or he's just distracted by the kids. They do turn out to be distracting, at least when it comes to Ford's attentions.

Now that the Mystery Twins are in town, Dirk has a whole new schedule to learn. It's the fourth day in, and Ford and Dipper are off in the forest, collecting samples. The notes that Ford had collected from around his room are hidden like Easter eggs around the Shack, and it's an ongoing project of Dipper's to find them and solve their riddle.

"It's cute how you're both huge nerds," Dirk said that morning, watching Ford dress.

Ford pulled on his gloves, and smiled at him, playful. "Well, I think it's cute that you think it's cute."

Which was dirty pool, frankly, because he was out of kissing range. In revenge, when Ford pulled on his work coat and checked his hair in the mirror, Dirk wolf whistled at him.

Now, Fordless and adrift, Dirk is in the TV room, surrounded by girls.

"It's just so romantic!" Growls Grenda, a shredded girl in a pink top. She looks so overwrought with emotion that she might punch him.

Candy's eyes are misty behind her glasses. "You are like a cartoon princess from a popular movie franchise. I would buy plenty of your merchandise."

"Thanks," says Dirk, and considers possible exit routes. "That's great, Candy."

Mabel is sewing a patch shaped like a labradoodle onto a green sweater, and smiles up at him from the carpet. He's sitting in Stan's chair, only because he'd been watching TV before the crowd of young teens had descended upon him. Now, he felt like history's most reluctant monarch, addressing the public from his throne.

"Tell us how you met," orders Mabel. "I've gotta know _e-ver-y-thing!"_

"Oh."  _ Oh, God. _ "Uh. Well. It was... at a club."

Grenda looks at Mabel, surprised. "Your science fiction Grunkle can dance?"

"He's a man of many talents that I don't know about," answers Mabel. Then, to Dirk: "Did your eyes lock across the dance floor?"

Dirk pulls his phone out of his pocket, and scrolls through his chumlist to see who's on. "Uh. Not exactly, no. He was busy taking notes on the local wildlife, and I wasn't dancing, yet, I'd only just got there. But I did, you know, notice him."

"An instant connection," says Candy, nodding sagely. "You found love in a hopeless place."

Dirk's phone chimes with an incoming message, and he leaps up from the chair. "Oh, wow, a new message, gotta respond, bye, everyone."

Grenda growls in disappointment, and Mabel says, "Aw, what?" But Dirk is already out the door and on the front porch. He leans against it to keep it closed, and takes a deep breath.

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering  turntechGodhead [TG]

TT: To whom it may concern,

TT: Send me a message right now.

TG: uh sure man whats up

TT: Thank you.

TG: what for

TG: i literally dont know what is up

TG: which is why i asked what is

TT: Sorry. Didn't mean to be an inscrutable jackass.

TT: I just needed an escape from a social situation, and you have successfully done me that solid.

TG: wait what

TG: thats some middle school shit dirk

TT: I guess.

TG: all texting your friend under the table

TG: trying to get out of class so you can get your ferris bueller on outside

TG: arent you meeting up with ford right now?

TT: I mentioned Ford to you?

TG: hold on

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] sent timaeusTestified [TT] the file "laughtrack.wav" -- 

TG: thats for your funny joke

TT: Of course.

TT: I tend to forget everyone to whom I waxed rhapsodic about my boyfriend.

TG: is that right

TG: well first of all congratulations on locking it down

TG: second of all it was literally everyone

TG: even the mayor knows and you know how hes not into interpersonal drama and goss

TG: third

TG: how about you go back to your conversation and stop messaging me like a contestant on the hit reality tv show i like to call rude bastards with phones

TT: Okay, fine.

TT: Talk to you later.

TG: sure

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering  turntechGodhead [TG]

"Hey."

Dirk looks up, surprised that someone had snuck up on him. That it turned out to be a young redhead in a flannel did little to soothe his ego. "Hey," you say back.

"Heard the twins got in yesterday." She nods to Dirk, or, potentially, at the entrance he's blocking. "They home?"

Mentally adjusting the phrase "the twins" to mean Dipper and Mabel and not Beefcake and Dreamy, he pockets his phone. "Mabel is. Dipper is out with Ford, doing forest science."

"That sounds about right," she says. Then, she tilts her head, and offers her fist to bump. "Don't think we've met. I'm Wendy."

"Dirk," he says, and receives the bump with aplomb. "Nice nose ring."

She smiles, and tweaks it with her thumb. "Thanks. Figured I was overdue for an act of youthful rebellion, you know?"

Dirk does know, roughly, and nods. Then, he steps aside, and gestures to the door. "Allow me to stop being a fire hazard."

"No worries," she says, and opens the door. "Hey, Mabel! What is up!"

The screams of delight from inside the house grate a bit on Dirk's nerves. It makes him feel old, and he tries to rationalize his discomfort away. Happy sounds are happy sounds, no matter the age of the person making them. He just prefers to have a wall between him and the source of the action.

Dirk considers taking a walk in the forest, but he doesn't want to interrupt Grunkle-nephew bonding time. Instead, he heads to the storefront of the Shack, and watches Soos wheel and deal for a while. At the moment, he's discussing whether or not a rock is a face with a group of camera-wielding tourists. Dirk snaps a picture on his phone, and sends it to Alpha groupchat, now named "Horrific Horndogs, LLC."

After the show's over and the tourists descend on the gift shop, Soos waves at Dirk. "Hey, dude! Good to see you."

"Hey, Soos." Dirk nods to the multibear keychains. "Any chance you can hook me up?"

He laughs, and shakes his head. "No way, Dirk. It's more than my job is worth to give out free merchandise. But if keychains are what you're into, might I interest you in the slightly cheaper wood chip line?" He holds up a keyring that has been somehow worked through a raw piece of wood. "Genuine Gravity Falls pine! Give it a smell."

Dirk does. "Smells like tree. And cheesy dust."

Soos wipes his hand on his suit, and puts the keyring back. "Cheesy dust not included with purchase."

Dirk leans against the counter, and watches as a young kid begins industriously picking every magnet off the magnet tree and throwing it to the ground. "Having fun?"

"You know it," says Soos. "What about you?"

It's not a bad question. Dirk struggles to answer it in a way that isn't violently depressing.

On the one hand, of course he is. He wakes up every morning curled around the man of his dreams, and ends every day bringing him up from a lab full of wondrous creations. It's the gay, domestic adult version of paradise.

On the other, families. Constant footsteps and chatter, coming from every direction. Sudden shouts of joy that still make him reach for his sword. Not knowing what about his life is rated E for everyone, so sharing as little personal information as possible. Living with his friends had never been like this; his friends, he's slowly learning, are pretty much all quiet introverts. When they all hang out, they are all also on their phones or computers, retreating from the conversation when it becomes overstimulating.

Dirk is sensitive. He kind of hates it.

"You know," he says, waving a hand. "Getting used to having a full house. It's... lively."

Soos nods, and adjusts the fez on his head when it slips. "Never a dull moment in the Mystery Shack! I used to be so jealous of Dipper and Mabel, getting to spend all their time here when I had to clock out and go home. I'm staying back at my old place with  _ abuelita  _ for the summer, though. I'm pretty sure you dudes are out of bedrooms."

"We've all doubled up," says Dirk. He's not quite bragging that he shares a bed with Ford, because he doubts Soos is competition, there. He likes saying it anyway.

"Still, though. What with the slumber parties Mabel likes to have, and the hours Dipper keeps, it's going to be a high traffic area for a while."

Dirk's face falls. "Slumber parties."

"Of course!" Soos starts to list things off with his fingers. "She's one of the heroes of Gravity Falls, she's a popular party planner, she loves not sleeping, and her friend Grenda just got back from a trip visiting her royal main squeeze. There's gonna be at least a few slumber parties, dude. How else is she going to stay on top of all the complex interpersonal dynamics of her social scene?"

Dirk looks out into the forest, and decides, fuck it. "I'm going for a walk. Good talking with you, Soos."

Soos waves goodbye, entirely unbothered with Dirk's sudden change in demeanor. Dirk has never seen Soos bothered at all, so that's not saying much. Still, he appreciates it.

The forest, at least, is quiet. It's also beautiful, autumn oranges and reds accenting the high summer greens. The pine trees, possibly Douglas firs, are straight out of Twin Peaks. Dirk focuses on his footsteps through the leaves, falling into his normal, near-silent strides. He naturally avoids the twigs in his path, and makes a simple game of leaving pine needles undisturbed.

The Pacific Northwest is still pretty much a mystery to Dirk. He knows that hipsters are from here, but he's only seen a few really suspect mustaches. Mabel Skyped her pig last night, but as far as odd pets go, that's nothing Dirk can't handle. He's never been to Portland, or Eugene, or that place where everyone goes apeshit for Shakespeare. Before, he'd entertained the thought of talking Ford into a road trip, but with the kids here now, the outlook isn't great.

He misses Ford. It's been... it hasn't even been a day.

Annoyed with himself, Dirk takes to the trees, freerunning from low branch to high one. He avoids birds nests, focusing on being light, agile, barely more present than the wind rustling the leaves. He hasn't pushed himself in a while, and it feels good; the old mattress he shares with Ford has left his lower back in a state, but the exercise swiftly loosens him up.

Keeping the water tower on his right, Dirk flips onto the flexible top of a Christmas-tree-looking motherfucker. It bends, and lowers him to a neighboring branch. He spins, and takes to the air in flight, picking a leaf out of his hair. The wind runs over his bare arms, and he tries to focus on the cold instead of his own mind.

"...Totally out of nowhere! Stan has a phone! You could have mentioned we'd have a guest!"

Dirk lowers himself back down into the trees, landing on a branch as thick around as a Pringles can.

"Dipper, he only just arrived," says Ford, dozens of feet below him. "For that matter, so have I. There's no cause for alarm. We can still do experiments together, just you and I."

The wind blows, and pine needles brush Dirk's face. He remembers Ford's notes, the dozens of fun projects he'd arranged specifically for Dipper.

"That's not the point, Grunkle Ford," Dipper says, raising his voice. "When I left Gravity Falls last summer, we'd just finished saving everybody and getting everything back to normal. And instead of keeping things nice and fixed, you invite in a total unknown quantity who never smiles and isn't even human! What did he tell you? Did he ask you about the portal?"

Dirk still can't see them, but he can hear them just fine. Before he can consider giving them privacy, he sees a dark shape. It jumps from branch to branch, maybe ten feet below him, and also seems to be focusing in on the loud conversation below.

"We discussed how we traveled between dimensions, yes," Ford says. "But he wasn't interested in the portal specifically."

"How do you know?" Shouts Dipper. "How  _ can _ you know? He could be lying! Did you repair the machine that reads people's thoughts, or are you just guessing what his intentions are? He tracked you down after all this time just to—to hang out at the Mystery Shack and eat pizza?  _ Hawaiian  _ pizza, the most suspicious kind?"

The shape flits from branch to branch, closer, now, and speeding up. Dirk watches it circle, and tries to think of any non-predator that circles people like that. Vultures aren't predators, he supposes, but vultures don't move that fast.

"Dipper," Ford says, voice strained, "He's not human, but he's not a bad person. If he were going to steal my organs or corrupt my research, he would have done so by now. Is it so impossible to imagine that he's here because we genuinely care for each other?"

"He's an extradimensional zombie who wears anime sunglasses!  _ Indoors!" _ His shout carries through the trees, and Dirk has to actively try to ignore it. "Open your eyes, man! He's—"

The shape lunges from the trees. It's fast, but Dirk's faster.

Dirk and the creature—massive, covered in grey fur and with two long, strong arms—collide in midair. Faster than the human eye can track, the creature turns toward Dirk, swiping at him with three bone-colored claws even as they fall to the ground. Luckily, as Dipper mentioned, Dirk doesn't have human eyes. His eyes are slightly more badass. He rhymes his sword out of his sylladex, parrying effortlessly.

The creature lands hard on its back, and the trees shake. Dirk springs back, looking for a weakness, some blind spot he can exploit. He hears Dipper and Ford cry something out, and maybe it's words, but he doesn't process them.

The beast in front of him, he realizes, looks like a giant sloth. Its hind legs are short and stubby, and its belly is round and soft. But instead of the doe-eyes and benign expression sloths usually have, this one looks fucking pissed. It rolls to its feet, raising itself up to its full six-foot height, and swipes out with one of its paws, but Dirk dodges, flashstepping to be between Ford and the monster.

"Dirk!" Shouts Ford. "Wait!"

The sloth goes for him again, talons like steak knives coming at his face. Dirk parries, and his sword catches, strapping him there in a contest of strength. He pushes back at the creature, and feels his feet start to slide on the forest floor. "Little busy."

"Do not injure the Anti-Sloth!" There's the sound of rustling paper, and Dirk knows he's being shown an entry in his journal. He can't turn around to see it, which doesn't seem to occur to Ford. "They are fiercely protective of their young, but otherwise harmless! We must be close to the nest!"

The "otherwise harmless" Anti-Sloth swipes at Dirk's legs, and he jumps up, hovering at an angle where he can increase the pressure. "I didn't see a nest, Ford."

Dipper, always on topic, says, "Did you follow us out here?—Are you  _ flying?" _

"Just taking a walk," says Dirk, and then ducks out of the way of a punch. "Coincidence."

"Coincidences don't exist! Grunkle Ford, you taught me that."

Dirk risks a glance behind him. Ford looks less worried for his life, and more intrigued by Dirk's presence in the air. "That's—a reductive interpretation, Dipper."

"They're your exact words!"

Irritation hits Dirk like a thunderbolt, and he decides to stop messing around.

"I was on a walk," he repeats, and flashsteps rapidly between three places, creating a mirage. The Anti-Sloth roars and lunges to its left, at where Dirk had been less than half a second ago. He flips his grip on his sword, and strikes it with the blunt edge, right in one bicep, and then the other. The Anti-Sloth screams, and holds its arms close to its body. "I didn't want to interrupt. My bad."

Dipper is silent. So is Ford. Dirk sweeps his leg under the Anti-Sloth's feet, and brings it crashing down again.

"Believe what you want," says Dirk, unable to keep from sounding irritated. When the Anti-Sloth starts to get up again, he lowers the sharp point of his blade to its jugular, and presses down just enough to shave a few hairs off its chin. It freezes, chest heaving.

Finally, he glares at Ford and Dipper. They're both starting at him, as if there isn't a huge, weird monster to grab their attention. As if Dirk is the huge, weird monster.

"You gonna run," Dirk asks them, hovering a foot off the ground, "or you gonna tranq this guy?"

Dipper's hands are fists at his sides. "I can't believe you were spying on us!"

Dirk knows he's closing himself off as he's doing it—his face grows blank, his body stills. He hates that this is his reaction, but he can't stop himself. Dipper's just a kid, there's no way Dirk isn't the asshole in this situation. Dirk should be more understanding, should have some way of reassuring him he's not an evil weirdo.

But Ford isn't saying anything to defend him, or telling Dipper to back off. He's watching Dirk fly as if he didn't even know that was a thing—but he does. Or at least he should. Even with Dirk's heavily edited and condensed life story, he knows that he's capable of weird shit. Dirk doesn't know what the big deal is to be seen flying now, in front of Dipper and the Anti-Sloth. Maybe being a dangerous flying swordsman is a problem, now that Ford is a family man. That thought makes it hard to give a shit about Dipper Pines' feelings.

He sheaths his sword, and puts it back in his sylladex—he knows it looks like it just disappeared, but he's not in the mood to explain. "Sorry for saving your life," he says, monotonous. "Won't happen again."

Ford starts to speak, but the moment's passed. Dirk flies up, shooting vertically until he's above the trees. He picks a direction that isn't toward the Shack, and absconds, leaving Ford to yell on the ground. Dirk doesn't need to hear it. He knows which side Ford is on, and worse, he agrees with his choice.

-

CG: YOU KNOW THAT I FOLLOW YOU ON SPOTIFY, RIGHT?

CG: FOLLOW, IN THE PRESENT TENSE. AS IN, I CURRENTLY GET NOTIFICATIONS ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE SUBJECTING YOUR AUDITORY HOLES TO.

CG: IN THE INTEREST OF KEEPING YOUR ASININE NUMBERS UP BY ONE, WOULD YOU MIND LISTENING TO SOMETHING THAT ISN'T GROWN ASS ADULTS WEEPING ABOUT PETTY BULLSHIT?

CG: YOU ARE CLOGGING UP MY FEED WITH SNOTNOSED WHINING.

CG: AT LEAST WHEN YOU LISTENED TO JOLENE FORTY-SEVEN TIMES IN A ROW, I COULD APPRECIATE IT AS PERFORMANCE ART.

CG: THIS IS JUST SAD.

-

GT: Hi diddly ho there buckaroo.

GT: Youre listening to your morose country playlist an awful lot.

GT: Did something happen?

GT: My connection here is spotty but if you message me ill get back to you as soon as i can.

GT: Just as blanket advice i want you to know that you dont HAVE to punish yourself with sad truck men every time you have a relationship hiccup.

GT: If that is your way of working through stuff then go for it! Stand in your truth.

GT: But there's no law saying youve got to nail yourself to a cross made of tractors and regret. Not unless you really want to.

GT: Take care buddy.

-

\-- tipsyGnostic [TG] sent timaeusTestified [TT] the file "kot.png" --

TG: look at this smol cat and be happy :3

TG: its hangin in there!

TG: you gotta hand in there too.

TG: *hand

TG: *HAND

TG: *OMG HANG******

TG: this keyboard sux

-

When the sun sets, Dirk seriously considers sleeping out in the elements. Maybe he'll get lucky, and a passing bear will eat him. He's spent the afternoon ignoring his phone and listening to his punishment playlist. As he floats slowly back to the Shack, he sends out a few apologies. Or at least explanations for his behavior.

-

TT: Unfollow me. I dare you.

TT: Follow through with having Dave "Brodyquest" Strider be your one source of new music.

CG: I BEG YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING PARDON.

CG: SCRATCH THAT. I DON'T BEG AT ALL. I WILL RIP YOUR PARDON OUT FROM UNDER YOU LIKE A HILARIOUS CHAIR PRANK.

CG: YOU WILL END UP ON THE FLOOR, ASS BRUISED AND EGO OBLITERATED.

CG: I HAVE MANY SOURCES OF NEW MUSIC. YOU DON'T KNOW ME!

TT: You are the proud owner of, by my last count, five volumes of Now That's What I Call Music.

CG: EFFICIENCY IS NOT A CRIME.

TT: No.

TT: Being half a step away from Kidz Bop definitely is, though.

CG: YOUR COMPARISON IS AS ERRONEOUS AS YOUR HAIR IS STUPID.

TT: Oh man. You got me.

TT: Time to go listen to more men who are devastated about the loss of their trucks.

TT: It's the only thing I'm good for, anyway.

CG: GODDAMN IT.

CG: DAVE WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU'RE FEELING BETTER.

CG: I'M NOT A FUCKING MESSAGE COURIER, BUT THAT HAS APPARENTLY NOT OCCURRED TO HIM.

TT: Tell him I'll give him an update later. I've got some stuff to do, first.

CG: MAYBE IT'S GENETIC, THINKING THAT I AM A MAILPERSON.

CG: WHICH I'M NOT.

CG: BUT I WILL PLAY ALONG FOR NOW.

CG: JUST PROMISE YOU'LL LAY OFF ANYTHING WITH HEAVY BANJOS FOR A WHILE. THAT SHIT IS TOXIC.

-

TT: I know I don't have to, Jake.

TT: You've misunderstood the use of sad country music.

TT: In order to maximize my introspective thoughts per minute (IPM), I have to juice the engine with stuff that makes me want to cry.

TT: Sad songs in general work fine, on a simply emotional level. But I've discovered that bad music makes me misty-eyed on a different level entirely.

TT: This excludes the likes of Willie Nelson or Dolly Parton, genuine country music legends. 

TT: I experimented with them in the past, but I've since found the perfect combination of subject matter and quality to get the tear ducts in overdrive.

TT: I'm talking about waxed facial hair tractor fuckers with billions of dollars trying to relate to Mister Blue Collar. A genuine travesty.

TT: I need to max out my misery to get it over with faster.

TT: Does it work?

TT: No.

TT: But I will let you know how the rest of my night goes from the couch, I guess.

\-- golgothasTerror [GT] is now an idle chum! --

-

\-- timaeusTestified [TT] sent tipsyGnostic [TG] the file "Sunset.png" -- 

TT: Look at that sunset.

TT: You should come visit. I'll build you a better keyboard.

TT: I'd do pretty much anything to get you here, actually.

TT: I think I just fucked everything up.

\-- tipsyGnostic [TG] is now an idle chum! -- 

-

Just kidding. Dirk sends his friends the same bullshit as always. He can't muster up the give-a-fuck necessary to actually explain himself. He feels raw and overwarm, like his entire body is a scab. He probably has a sunburn from staying above the treetops all afternoon.

He forgoes the front door entirely and opens the window to Ford's room. It's empty—it's lab o'clock for him, just as Dirk suspected. They have a lot of things in common; it's not out of the question that they share unhealthy coping mechanisms. If he were Ford, he'd skip dinner and stay there all night. As it stands, he gives his pink skin a once-over, and decides that, for the foreseeable future, he's going to live in the shower.

He grabs his towel, throws it over his shoulder, and opens the door to the hallway. He is immediately confronted with Dipper, hand outstretched to grab where the doorknob was a second before.

"Oh," says Dipper. "Uh. I... didn't hear you come in."

Dirk skin feels tight, his heart feels heavy, and he's anticipating being scolded by the world's most perfect man. So, there is a little more bitterness than usual in his tone when he says, "I'm also a ninja."

Dipper's eyes widen. "Really? I mean—not really, right?"

Dirk's face is a mask. "Not sure why I would lie about my chosen vocation, Dipper."

It's awkward, absolutely it is, staring down at Dipper with a face full of pink and a heart full of break. Dirk remembers one of the many things Dipper had to say about him—that he never smiles. He's been smiling nonstop for the past two weeks, but maybe only on the inside. He's never been great at expressing himself, and doesn't appreciate the astute review coming from a paranoid thirteen-year-old. The only paranoid thirteen-year-old he's used to getting reviewed by is AR, and he hasn't spoken to him since before the Game ended.

Dipper sighs, and scuffs his foot on the carpet. "Look. Can I come in?"

Dirk doesn't say, "I don't know, can you?" But it's a close thing. Instead, he moves to the side, and turns on the light so they aren't talking in total darkness. Dipper walks in, and Dirk hangs the towel on the doorknob. He's not sure how long this is going to take.

Dipper looks around the room, taking in Ford's books on the nightstand and Dirk's suitcase, half-full of dirty laundry. After a moment, he sits at the foot of the bed and looks up at Dirk, determination coming off of him in waves.

"Grunkle Ford wants me to apologize to you," he says.

Dirk raises an eyebrow. "And?"

Dipper meets Dirk's eyes through the sunglasses—the sunglasses he, apparently, takes issue with. Not everyone can have perfect taste at his age. "I want you to tell me why you're here. I've heard it from Grunkle Ford, and I've heard it from Mabel. Believe me," he says, suddenly weary, "I've heard _ a lot _ about it from Mabel. But if I'm going to trust you, I need to hear the truth in your words."

This sudden turn for reasonable throws Dirk for a loop. He keeps the door open a crack, in case Dipper wants to run screaming out of there at any point. Dirk moves to the side of the room, leaning against the wall next to the mirror. Just this morning, Ford had flirted with him and fussed with his hair. It felt like years ago.

"I haven't been lying to you," says Dirk. "The ninja thing is only a slight exaggeration. I wasn't formally trained, but you've seen what I can do."

Dipper frowns. Dirk mentally kicks himself for accidentally threatening a child.

"I mean," he continues, shoulders rigid, "I really was just taking a walk. When I saw the Anti-Sloth pounce, I didn't stop to think about it. Were you tracking it?"

"Maybe?" Dipper reaches into his pocket and shows Dirk three small scraps of paper, all with slightly different symbols on them. "I haven't cracked the code yet. Either way, I'm glad I'm not dead, so. Thanks."

Dirk nods, and clears his throat. "Uh. No problem."

They lapse into silence again. Dipper plays with the papers in his hands, smoothing out the creases where they were folded by pinching them between his fingers. Dirk knows how many pieces of the puzzle there are, but he doesn't know where Ford hid them. It's very elaborate and thoughtful in a way that makes Dirk feel unworthy.

"He's a good Grunkle," says Dirk. "You guys—you have fun together, huh."

"Yeah," Dipper says, tone of voice suddenly sarcastic. "Fun, like that time the world almost ended, or when I was shrunk into a game piece and attacked by a  _ DD and More D _ wizard. Fun stuff that I absolutely don't want to do again!"

Dirk doesn't follow the words, but he hears the tone loud and clear. He's still struggling to think of a good response when Dipper continues.

"Last summer, I barely got any time with Grunkle Ford. First he was avoiding me, then we were busy patching up a hole between our world and Bill's chaos dimension. This whole year, I was looking forward to finally having some down time with him. Maybe learn a little more about his work, or read a few of the journals he wrote while he was on the other side of the portal."

"You can still have that," says Dirk. He swallows, and crosses his arms over his chest. "I'm not trying to get in the way. I messed up today, obviously, and I'm sorry about that."

"I just wanna know that you're not evil," says Dipper, all at once. "You're really weird—no offense—"

"None taken."

"—But that's fine, as long as you actually..." Dipper crosses his arms as well, and glares up at him. "As long as you prove you're not a supervillain, or a cultist, or something even worse. If you're taking Grunkle Ford for a ride, and trying to use him for his research, I'm going to find out. And I'm going to stop you."

Dirk stares at Dipper, all four-foot-something of him, and feels something that might be pride.

"Dipper," he says, finally on solid ground, "if I ever— _ ever _ —hurt Stanford Pines, I don't need you to kick my ass. I'll kick my own ass so hard I'll enter Earth's orbit."

Dipper reels back. "What?"

"Or—not ass." Dirk runs a hand through his hair, nervous. "Shit."

"One more time?" Dipper pockets the scraps of paper, and stares at Dirk like he's crazy. "Without the cussing?"

"You're right to be suspicious," says Dirk, finally finding the rhythm of the conversation. "Like you said, I'm weird, and it's possible that I tracked you guys today without thinking about it. I fall into old habits like that sometimes, because I've lead a really dangerous life. You and your sister are the first kids your age I've spoken to since I  _ was _ your age. I've died, twice actually, and I'm from a future that will no longer come to pass. I met your Grunkle Ford when he was a thirtysomething heartthrob in a dimension full of insect people, so if you want to think I was the only port in the storm, so to speak—"

Dipper holds up his hands, trying to slow Dirk down, but that train has long since left the station.

"That's fine, it's all fine. Stalk me, take notes, keep me in line. I'm weird. I know," says Dirk. He pulls off his shades, and looks Dipper in the eye. "Believe me. By the standards of this dimension, I'm a walking freakshow. I know."

"Hold on," says Dipper, anxiety clear on his face. "Did you call my Grunkle a  _ heartthrob?" _

"He is," Dirk says, certain as taxes. "He's a good man, and I l—like him, I like him a lot. I don't want to eat him or steal his research. I want to make his morning coffee and read all the books he likes."

Dipper's expression tells Dirk that he should have shut up about three paragraphs ago, but he has officially lost control of his mouth. He's loud, now, and he can't remember when he started losing control of his volume. Now that he's talking, it's all rushing out of him at once, and he can't find it within himself to stop.

"And hey, wanting more time with Grunkle Ford? I feel you on that, I absolutely do, I want to be with him all the time. But you get priority. You're his nephew, and he loves you so much, Dipper. He's been looking forward to hanging out with you since you left. You make him happy, and I'm happy you make him happy."

"Then why the long face?" Dipper asks, exasperated. "You look really bummed all the time. You barely even smile at Mabel's joke, and she's made historical monuments laugh!"

Dirk bristles. "I'm not sad!"

Dipper makes a frustrated noise, and tugs on his hair. "Are you kidding me? All you do is call Ford sarcastic nicknames and mope around the house like the world's boringest ghost. I asked you to tell the truth, and you're just cracking jokes and—"

"That's just my voice!"

Dirk's phone chimes, and Dipper points at Dirk's pocket, accusatory. "And your phone! God, you're always on your phone, you're worse than Tambry. If you don't want to be here, then just leave!"

The door creaks open, and both Dipper and Dirk freeze. Dirk doesn't know why he freezes—this is his room, at least more than it is Dipper's. Maybe it's the guilt coursing through his system, or his rising desire to yell at a kid.

Ford steps into the room, expression solemn. "Dirk?" He has never sounded less impressed. "Dipper? Everything all right?"

"Fine," they say in unison. Dipper glares at Dirk like he's trying to light Dirk's hair on fire with his mind. Dirk has no expression at all, and chooses to look at Ford, instead. Even visibly annoyed, he's a hell of a view—dark and stormy, posture perfect and not a hair out of place. 

"Glad to hear it," says Ford. "Dinner's in a few minutes. Wendy and Soos will be joining us."

Dirk pushes off from the wall, and moves toward Ford. He's a solid wall of not-amused, and it's Dirk's fault, he knows it is. He wants to fix it more than he wants to breathe, but he has no information, experience, or tools. When Dirk reaches out a hand, Ford's hand twitches, almost moving to hold it.

Dirk pulls the bath towel off the door knob. "Pass. Sorry. Long day." He holds up the towel, and opens the door a bit wider so he can get through. "Shower."

Ford doesn't block him. Dirk knew he wouldn't. He walks down the hall to the shower, and doesn't look back.

-

\-- tipsyGnostic [TG] is now an idle chum! -- 

TT: Any data extrapolated from a single point in time is going to be flawed. I should have taken that into more serious consideration before I came here.

TT: That one day we had years ago was not a viable basis to imagine what his daily life is like now.

TT: No matter how many times I went over it in my head, I couldn't accurately hypothesize about what he would want. I didn't even know how much time was passing, on his end.

TT: At what point, during your first date, do you ask if the other person wants kids?

TT: When do you pause the makeouts for long enough to ask, hey, what's your relationship with your family like? Do you still talk to your parents? Must be nice. Can't relate.

TT: Literally can't relate, because I don't have relations. Relatives. Whatever.

TT: He has twelve PhDs. He went to, I don't know, science fairs. He had field trips.

TT: I studied pop culture for years, and somehow the only school I know anything about is fucking Hogwarts.

TT: I don't know. I didn't think that I was too weird for him before. But now?

TT: Dipper asked me point blank whether or not I'm a supervillain and I couldn't even answer him.

TT: What was I supposed to say?

TT: "No, but I did manipulate all of my friends over the course of years in order to win an unwinnable game"?

TT: "Only if you consider ripping someone's soul out through their face a supervillainous activity"?

TT: "Maybe, if you've read any Machiavelli and thought that he was one"?

TT: Stanford Pines has a family that loves him. He's not alone, anymore.

TT: I don't know what I can give him that he doesn't already have, in spades, from better people than me.

TT: I don't know how to tell him everything I've done. The longer I stay here, the more I feel like I shouldn't.

TT: Whoever he thought was perfect... that's the guy he deserves.

TT: I can either try to be that guy, or get out of his hair.

TT: ...

TT: Maybe I should be on my phone less.

TT: For now.

TT: Dipper knows Ford better than I do. If that's his advice, I might as well take it.

TT: Goodnight, Roxy.

TT: I'll... yeah.

TT: Talk to you later.

\-- tipsyGnostic [TG] is now an idle chum! -- 

-

Hours later, Dirk collapses into bed, waterlogged and exhausted. As soon as his head hits the pillow, he remembers that he should have gone to the couch.

"MISTER DARCY IS A TOTAL JERK," bellows Grenda from downstairs. "WHY CAN'T HE SEE HOW WONDERFUL ELIZABETH IS?"

Sleepovers, Soos had said. Most likely, the couch is taken.

Brain sluggish, he goes over his options. The attic is out, obviously. The lab, too. Stan wouldn't be thrilled if he made a nest out of shirts in the storefront. A year ago, Soos had mentioned a place in town where he could crash. At that point, why not just go all the way home? Sleep in his own bed, stare at his own stuff while he fails spectacularly to rest.

The door opens before Dirk has made up his mind. He sits up in bed, crossing his legs and resting his elbows on his knees. Ford slips in, and closes the door behind him.

"I'm sorry," says Dirk. His voice is hoarse—he knew that he'd been loud, but hadn't realized  _ how  _ loud he'd been until he replayed it in his mind a few dozen times. "I messed up."

Silently, Ford pulls off his turtleneck, and then his undershirt. The tattoos Dirk has traced every night they've been together are dark and illegible in the low light. Ford undoes his belt, and doesn't look Dirk's way.

"I like Dipper," he says. "He's good. He cares about you a lot. Not like I can't see why."

Naked apart from his boxers, Ford slides into bed. He pulls up the covers, and lays them gently on Dirk's legs. When he's finished, he keeps a hand at Dirk's hip, and brings the other to Dirk's jaw.

"Sorry I'm on my phone all the time," he continues. "I didn't realize. I'll try to stop. I'm... sorry."

Ford kisses him, slow and gentle, and Dirk almost fucking cries. He brings his hands to Ford's shoulders, keeping him right where he is, and lets his eyes fall closed. When Ford pulls back, it's only a few inches, and his body heat relaxes the muscles that four hours in a hot (then lukewarm, then cold) shower didn't reach.

Dirk opens his eyes slowly, feeling like human molasses. Impossibly, Ford is smiling at him. "Long day?" He asks.

"I swore in front of Dipper," Dirk admits. "Like, three times at least."

Ford runs his hands through Dirk's hair, petting him. "He lived with Stanley for a summer. I'm sure it's nothing he hasn't heard before."

"When I was his age, I swore like a fucking runaway train," says Dirk.

Ford kisses him again, and Dirk shuts up.

They don't make love. Instead, Ford just holds him and pets his hair, and kisses him at semi-random intervals, like he can sense when Dirk is thinking about what a disaster he is. Dirk feels himself falling slowly to sleep.

"Today was difficult," says Ford. "Tomorrow will be better."

And when Ford says it, all Dirk can do is believe him.


	7. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kind words and kudos!

The elevator doors open with a ding, and Dirk walks into the lab, a mug of coffee in either hand. In a gesture of peace, he's left his phone on silent. "Ford?"

Dirk hears the sound of soldering before he sees the flame. Ford is wearing protective gloves up to his elbows, and fusing two delicate pieces of titanium together. The heat comes from a tight sphere of argon and magic; it's one of Ford's more practical inventions. Dirk averts his eyes from the sparks (lab safety is no joke), and moves to the far-most right workbench. He scoots a stack of paper over to one side, and puts Ford's coffee down.

The blueprints he sees are new, sketchy in that four-A.M.-breakthrough way that Dirk intimately recognizes. Ford's lines are strong and bold, showing a cross-section of two circular nodes connected by three wires. One node is placed on the right temple of a featureless head, the other just over the heart on the left. It looks like it belongs on a Federation ship, complete with added blinky lights and colorful casings on the wires.

To the left of the nodes' breakdown is a sketch of the human brain, with the language centers highlighted in pink and yellow. Dirk hasn't mapped out a mind in years, but he gets a vague idea about what the nodes are meant to accomplish.

Like most of Ford's work, it's solid design, if not a little chunky. More Jeep than Maserati. Dirk takes a pencil and a blank sheet of graph paper, and starts in on his own version of the project. Just for fun—he's not yet bold enough to suggest changes to Ford's stuff, even cosmetic ones. He spends most of his time down here dicking around with discarded prototypes and watching Ford.

Dirk hears the roar of the Noble Blowtorch stop, and the subsequent metal creak of Ford removing his face guard. Without looking up from his sketch, Dirk smiles and holds out Ford's coffee, still plenty warm.

"Morning," says Ford, chipper. "Like what you see?"

Dirk does look up, then, and waggles his eyebrows. Ford laughs, and almost upsets his coffee.

"The design, Dirk. What do you think?"

"Oh, the _design."_ Dirk puts his pencil down and picks up his own mug, considering the blueprints. "It's cool. Reading thoughts as they're formed into language, adopting tone from heart rate and adrenal glands. Sorting through the chemical juice and making something auditory. Is this for mute folks?"

Ford crosses his arms, head tilted to the side. "I hadn't considered that. It certainly could be!"

"The HUD is an interesting concept. The conversation wheel is very Mass Effect, but it's only visible to the user. Conscious input, post-impetus restructuring... I like that it's removable," Dirk adds. "No drill to the head required. Considerate."

"I wanted it to be comfortable." Ford smiles at Dirk. "I prefer it when this user is comfortable. And I didn't want to cause permanent change to his face—the original deserves preservation."

Dirk takes a sip from his mug, then deadpans, "Now you've done it. I'm a jealous guy. Who do I have to go beat up?"

"Don't be ridiculous. It's _you,"_ laughs Ford. "This is for you."

Dirk looks back at the blueprints, surprised. This is a long way from star charts. He's a rapper, a wordsmith—a poet, and he knows it. The idea that he needs a machine to speak for him is familiar in the worst possible way. "Okay," he says. "Why?"

Ford puts down his drink, the better to gesture expansively. "I've been observing you. I'm not an accredited behavioral psychologist, but I have enough experience in the field to know that something has been bothering you. You've never hesitated to voice your opinions before, so I can only assume what's holding you back is the phraseology of your thoughts. Naturally, from there, I started to ponder the cerebral cortex."

Dirk blinks. Then, he blinks again. That's... a pretty huge leap in logic. "Naturally."

"Without a full MRI scan, I can't say for certain that it's the language centers of your brain which are struggling," says Ford, pointing to the highlighted parts of the brain—Dirk's brain, apparently. "But given the way you conversed with my nephew, it's clear that your new tendency to self-edit is detrimental to your self-expression. It's possible that your hippocampus or amygdala is processing chemicals to which it is unused—does your family have a history of such resistance to change?"

"Of... amygdala trouble?" He knows, in layman's terms, that it's considered to be the emotional center of the brain. He thinks about himself, and his relationships, and then Dave's. "Maybe."

Ford nods, pleased. "I thought as much. I believe that you feel things very strongly, but are unable to voice them. As a man of science, you're frustrated—and who wouldn't be?" Ford doesn't look frustrated, himself. Instead, he's glowing. "I don't claim to understand the cause, but I do have a potential solution."

Dirk did not come down to the lab expecting any of this. If he'd taken a moment to think about it, he would have assumed Ford was pretending last night's teenage shouting match had never happened, and he was perfectly willing to go along with that. For Ford to immediately assume that there was a neurological barrier keeping Dirk from being honest is a huge thing for Dirk to process. If he ever doubted that these blueprints had been minted at four in the morning, he now has proof to the contrary.

But... even assuming all of that, a solution is not unwelcome. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yes," Ford continues, in the full swing of scientific speechmaking. "Dirk, you have only ever been honest with me. You have been clear and direct, when it comes to your needs and desires. It's one of the things I remember most clearly from our time together."

 _Our time together, almost three decades ago,_ Dirk finishes for him.

"You know that you can tell me anything—that goes without saying—so of course whatever subject you are hesitating to address is more complex than a simple 'how are you' can pull loose." His chest puffs out with pride, and he picks up his blueprints. "I can't read your mind. I've experimented with telepathy before, with mixed results. But I _can_ offer you perfect accuracy in your conversation." He holds up the sketch of his nodes. "Imagine—what if you could pick and choose which thoughts to voice with pinpoint accuracy, and let an external source synthesize the correct words to use? What if you had an editor, which only you could see, giving you notes on your thoughts as you think them? A barrier, under your direct control, between what you think and what you say?"

"A filter," says Dirk, looking down at the sketches. "A word filter."

Ford's eyes are wide and manic. "You'd never curse without meaning to. You'd never have a forgotten word on the tip of your tongue. You could be honest without being offensive—imagine never having an argument about what you meant, or what you intended to say."

Dirk traces the lines of the wires from temple to heart. "Perfect communication. Benign, yet likable."

"Whenever you want," finishes Ford. "With whomever you'd like."

Dirk almost reaches out, but pulls his fingers into a fist. He doesn't want to smudge the graphite. Instead, he looks over the lines with renewed understanding. Ford did this for him. Ford _wants_ this for him.

Ford puts the blueprints back down on the table, the better to make spirit fingers with his clever hands. "I call it... the Auto-Prompter."

Dirk sputters, and turns it into a laugh at the last minute. "Uh—no. We can work on that."

Ford looks reverently down at the schematic, then up at Dirk. The reverence is still in his expression. Dirk swallows, and touches his right temple with his fingers, rubbing the skin as if to will away a headache. There is no ache, there—for once, his mind is almost clear.

"What do you think?" Ford prompts again.

A long time ago, Dirk worked to improve his friends. They never appreciated his attempts, but they were borne from a place of goodwill. Dirk never thought someone would think about him that way. That someone would look at him, see what he wanted to be, and devote such time and energy into helping him get there. Dirk wants to wear the machine right then, so he can know how to tell Ford how he feels. He can be the perfect man, and explain his weird fucking life in the perfect way. It'll be _easy._

His voice catches, and he clears his throat, trying to keep his tone light. "This is... really thoughtful, Ford. Thank you."

Ford must hear a bit of what Dirk doesn't say, because he kisses Dirk right on the temple. Right where Dirk's tell-all confession is going to come from, one of these days. "You're welcome."

Dirk lifts up his own sketch, and considers it. "If it's for me," he says, and hands the paper to Ford, "I've got some suggestions."

Ford adjusts his glasses, and blinks at the paper. "LED screens?"

"Voice tone modulation is a start," says Dirk. "But you know what shorthand we need? Emojis."

"Emo-what?" Ford looks between the designs, and runs a finger over the elegant curve of Dirk's forehead node. It would swoosh over his eyebrow, with a circular screen at his temple. Seven of Nine is a clear inspiration. "I don't know what that is."

"Pictographs," says Dirk, and watches Ford light up with interest. "I can't make the right face when I need it. It'd be nice if I could delegate that job."

Ford takes up a pencil, and starts to add to Dirk's design. "No wires?"

"They're cute in a retro way," clarifies Dirk, "but they don't really go with my aesthetic. I'll just keep them in a box when not in use, like AirPods."

They pull out a fresh sheet, and get to work, Ford listing out the chemicals it would need to monitor, Dirk making it look good. Battery technology has changed a lot, even in the past year, and the nodes get smaller and smaller as they research.

Dirk designs the emojis from scratch using a pixelart app on his phone. Ford laser cuts a perfect, quarter-millimeter-thick chip of dilithium crystal to use as a power source. Dirk records his voice, breaking down the phonemes until his weird future-Southern accent can be excised.

"But I like your accent," says Ford.

"That makes one of us," says Dirk, and pulls on the protective rubber gloves. "You'll get enough of it at night, I'm not planning on going to bed wearing them."

Not at first, anyway. There are a few things he'd like to know how to ask Ford to do with him. Ford isn't a prude, but the 1980s were a long time ago.

Ford, appeased, hands him the Noble Blowtorch. Dirk smiles at him, even though he knows he's bad at smiling.

They lose track of time entirely until the elevator dings again. "Grunkle Ford?" Dipper calls. "Lunchtime."

Dirk pulls his protective goggles up to his forehead, and blinks, readjusting to the light. Dipper sees him, and looks profoundly awkward. Dirk runs his fingers over the screen prototype, and longs for the completed project.

"Hey," Dirk says.

"Oh. Uh, hey," says Dipper.

Dirk puts down his tools, and collects the long-empty mugs from off of the table. "Sorry about last night. I'm... I botched it."

Dipper scratches his arm, and shrugs, looking a way. "Ha ha, well. You know."

Dirk doesn't know, and he's pretty sure that Dipper doesn't, either. Ford locks a trunk full of minerals shut with two clicks, and smiles brightly at them both. Dirk wonders if he's happy because Dirk's trying to get along with his nephew, or because it's more data for their new invention.

Talking with Dipper makes Dirk's heart hurt and his face gets all blotchy. He figures it's better not to, at least for now. He isn't the silver-tongued guy who knows how to apologize, yet. The best he can do at the moment is be honest, and hope he can make it up to him later.

"If you want the truth," Dirk continues, walking over to join Dipper by the elevator, "the nicknames aren't a joke, and your taste in pizza is garbage."

Dipper boggles up at him. Ford joins them, and waves them into the elevator.

Lunch is an array of pre-packaged sliced meats and breads, to make into sandwiches of varying legitimacy. Mabel bogarts the mustard and ketchup to create an intricate painting on a slice of sourdough, so Dirk goes without. Dipper tries to reason with her, saying that she won't see the art as she's eating the sandwich, but she tells him that he simply doesn't understand her work. Dirk could have told Dipper that that was a non-starter, but he's gambled with that interaction enough, this morning. 

As they finish, there's a knock on the door. Stan is first to stand up, still in his workday best. "Probably some tourist who can't read the 'entrance this way' sign," he grouses. Dirk returns to his ham and cheese.

That is, until he hears the dulcet tones of his best friend from the front door.

"Hey," says Roxy, and Dirk flashsteps to the front hall before she can finish, "there."

She's dressed in a loose blouse and high-waisted trousers, rocking the 1950s housewife vibe, complete with enormous sunglasses. She lowers them and winks at Stan—no jury would convict her—before seeing Dirk over his shoulder. "I'm responding to an ess oh dee? 'Save Our Dork'?"

Shamefully, it takes him a moment to place it. Roxy, one of the best people the multiverse has ever known, is here because he straight up asked her to be. His shoulders relax, his face smoothing into a softer expression. She pushes up her sunglasses again and raises her eyebrows, reading his mind and finding it amusing.

Stan looks at her, then back at Dirk. "Yeah, this is the right place. Hey, Dork! You've got a visitor."

"Thanks, so much." Dirk stands by Stan and offers Roxy his hand. She bats it aside and hugs him, giving him a squeeze around the middle. "Hey," he says, feeling meek.

"Heya," she says, and when she steps back, she keeps her hands at his sides. "Good to see you again, stranger. Were you planning on hiding in your Love Shack forever?"

"Eh," cuts in Stan, pausing in his return trip to the kitchen. "Don't call it that."

"Please," agrees Dirk. "It's not as big as a whale. It doesn't even have a tin roof."

She pinches his ribs, and then turns to Stan. One hand is on her hips, and the other is playing with her shades again. Dirk wasn't sure if it was nerves about meeting new people, or just pure love of costumes and props. "Nice to meet you. I'm Roxy. I'm sure Dirk has told you all about me."

Stan exchanges a glance with Dirk.

"Or," she amends, offering her hand to shake, "he's never mentioned me at all. Both are equally Dirk Strider moves."

"Yeah, I've got nothing." Stan takes her hand, and gives her one of his salesman smiles. "Stan Pines, Man of Mystery, back in business for the summer. Are you... you know." He wiggles his fingers, gesture unintelligible. "Some weird video game god person? I wasn't paying attention when Dork explained it."

"Just 'Dirk' is fine," Dirk says. Roxy is too busy laughing to notice.

"Pretty much, yeah! It's awesome." This is either a gross exaggeration or a total lie, but Roxy appears to believe in what she's saying. "So you're Stan. Is Ford around? I've got some coals to rake him over."

Stan shouts a laugh, and waves her over to the kitchen. Dirk is left to trail behind them, wondering if his presence is even required, now. Roxy is so _ good  _ at this, and she has all the same excuses Dirk has to suck at it. He remembers introducing himself to Stan, and having it feel like a federal fucking issue. She's gained his trust and access to his kitchen, where the food lives, in less than sixty seconds.

Roxy stands in the doorway, pushes her sunglasses up to rest on her head, and then crosses her arms. "Stanford Pines!"

Dirk peers over her shoulder. Ford sits between Dipper and Mabel, coat and shoulder holster off, looking soft and domestic in his red turtleneck. He has put down his sandwich, and looks tense at the new presence. Dipper, too, looks up suspiciously at her. Mabel chews happily.

Roxy elbows Dirk in the stomach without looking back. "I see it. I get it, I think."

"Ow," says Dirk.

She points at Ford like an anime lawyer. "You're the hunk my best friend is dating! Get on over here and say hi."

"Friend?" Ford perks up in his seat, and then stands, smile hesitant on his face. "You're—one of the other Universe creators, then? I was wondering when I would be able to meet you."

Roxy shrugs, and offers her hand to shake, again. There's a half second where Dirk wants her to pull it back. She should know how sensitive Ford can be about his hands, and he's certain that this is the wrong move. But Ford just reaches out and takes it like it's nothing.

"It's kind of weird that that's my rep, I guess," she says, grinning up at him. "I don't know how Dirk explained it to you, but it was mostly a lot of waiting around and then a bunch of violent bullshit."

"Bee ess," Dirk corrects, under his breath. Roxy looks back at him, surprised, before seemingly noticing the kids in the room for the first time.

_ "Bee ess?"  _ Roxy asks, baffled. "You think there's a thirteen year old alive who doesn't know swears and shit?"

Dipper swallows his bite of sandwich, looking wary. "Mabel says that if I swear I owe her a dollar. And a punch." He looks over to his twin. "And she gets to choose where the punch goes."

"Free hint!" Chirps Mabel. "It's gonna be right in the kidney. Hello there! I'm Mabel. I like your sunglasses!"

"Well, I like your braces!" Again, Dirk tenses. Don't kids hate comments about their appearance? Braces are supposed to be painful, and, according to popular culture, ugly. "They make your teeth way shiny."

Mabel beams up at Roxy, showing off the rainbow-colored bands to full effect. "Yes, they do! They're one of my shiniest accessories." She holds out her hands, palm outward, and gives some impressive spirit fingers. "I call them 'teeth sequins.'"

Dirk looks to Ford to anchor him, but Ford appears similarly unmoored. Ford is watching Roxy, not with suspicion, but with unveiled curiosity. Dirk tries to see her through his eyes: beautiful, confident, smart, charismatic. It occurs to him that Ford could find Roxy attractive, and then immediately feels like an asshole for a bunch of reasons. He forces himself to worry about something less awful, such as how easily she's winning over the younger twins.

Finally, Roxy squares her shoulders. "This is fun," she says, "and I'm down to eat a sandwich with you guys, but I gotta talk to Ford, first. Ford, do you have any, like, interrogation rooms? Where the lights are all flickery and there's a desk where I can slam my hands on it like," she lowers her voice and clenches her fists, "'you can't handle the truth!' And stuff like that?"

Ford, understandably, looks confused by the request, but is still smiling. "I have a front porch. Is that suitably dramatic?"

Roxy sighs theatrically. "I  _ guess _ so."

They move out of the kitchen together, and Dirk is alone with Dipper, Mabel, and Stan. His skin itches with the need to follow them outside, but he knows that ship never had a chance of sailing. He knows Roxy, and he knows what her cute getup means: in a word, business. She's going a little overboard, but she's probably relishing the chance to interrogate Dirk's boyfriend, just like how Dirk enjoyed being interrogated by his boyfriend's twin. The immediate downside to all this is that he is now stranded with children and lunch meats. And, of course, Stan.

Stan sits back down with a grunt, and pops open a new can of soda. "You'd say something if she were evil, right?"

Dirk, still standing and shoulders tense, shakes his head. "Not evil. Roxy's great. I just... I didn't know she was coming today."

"She  _ is  _ great," agrees Mabel, certain as taxes. She's drawing a smiley face in mustard on her plate. "There are always so many boys around. It's about time we evened up the playing field."

"But she's not staying," says Dipper, surprised. He looks at Stan, and then at Dirk. "We're a full house. She just appeared out of nowhere. She's not staying, right?"

Stan looks at Dirk, as well, eyebrows raised as he sips his drink. Dirk fidgets, and moves to adjust his shades. He realizes mid-gesture that he's emulating Roxy, and won't be able to make the gesture look natural. He drops his hand again.

"I don't know," he admits. "I really didn't know she was coming. I'm—this is surprising to me, too."

"Nothing surprising about it," says Stan, loading up a slice of bread with turkey. "She must think you nerds are getting serious, if she's looking to read him the riot act." He grins, and folds the bread over, hot dog bun style. "I hope you didn't tell him anything really embarrassing, Dirk. Ford can keep secrets about giant lizards and wizards from space, but ask him a personal detail, and he immediately spills the beans. You haven't done anything embarrassing with him, have you?"

Dirk feels like he is about to burst into flames. His mind is racing, trying to remember if there is anything Roxy doesn't know about Ford, or any stories that Dirk told with unreliable narration. He wants, more than anything, to know what they are talking about. Is it standard shotgun talk, like Stan did with him? How is Ford reacting to that, given the strange new-but-not-quite-ness of their relationship?

"Uh," Dipper says, frowning at Dirk. "Are you okay?"

"Ford," says Dirk. Then, hideously embarrassed, he corrects, "I mean, fine. I'm going to. Go."

"Have fun eavesdropping," says Mabel, mouth full. Dirk is already headed to the front door.

There is a large window by the door, and Ford and Roxy are facing away from it. Still, Dirk takes the extra precaution of hunkering down low, and listens with his ear against the keyhole. Their body language doesn't look threatened or angry, which is as good a sign as any.

"Worried about him," Roxy is saying. "He doesn't leave his workshop for longer than a day, usually, and you've had him here for weeks. I was gonna meet you eventually, and then he asked me to come."

"He never mentioned," says Ford, voice low and gentle. Dirk wishes that he could see his face, and not just the line of his shoulders. Ford's hands are clasped behind his back, and they squeeze into fists as he thinks. "I was wondering what he was doing on his phone, all those times. Was that you?"

"A little, yeah." She looks out over the reddish-green of the forest, and brushes her hair out of her eyes. "There are a lot of us. He has a brother, too, did he ever mention that?"

As Dirk listens, his heart rate slows. This doesn't sound like an angry conversation, this just sounds like a conversation. Roxy wants to get to know Ford one-on-one, as soon as possible; it's not like Dirk couldn't say the same. As he relaxes, he realizes that eavesdropping is a bad move, boundaries-wise. This isn't Derse, they aren't bad guys, and he isn't a spy anymore. He stands up straight, and turns from the door.

"He doesn't tell me much of anything," says Ford. "Nothing of substance, anyway."

Dirk feels numb, then hurt, as if he has been shot. He stops, freezing in the middle of his tactful retreat.

"He likes you," explains Roxy. "He's an awkward guy, but that much is totally obvious. He probably just doesn't want you to learn something that would make you not like him."

Ford hums a note, interested. "I know that there are some things he has yet to share, but I can be patient. I have faith that all will become clear in time."

She huffs a breath, and shakes her head. "That's a lotta faith, my guy. You know about the Game, and you know he's a weirdo—that's a great start. I don't know everything he's told you, but I know he edits himself a bunch."

"He does," says Ford, sounding oddly fond. "He's so careful with me. It's... very strange."

Dirk reminds himself to breathe, and wills feeling back into his hands. He flexes his fingers, feeling cold and out of step with reality. Ford likes strange things. Ford likes him. He should focus on that, instead of that Ford isn't taking this prime opportunity to pump Roxy for info. Dirk feels like Ford trusts him, and it isn't as reassuring a feeling as he thought it might be. Putting your trust in Dirk Strider is almost always a bad judgement call, but it's not like he's going to tell Ford that, and he knows that Roxy isn't going to, either.

At least Ford sees it as Dirk being careful instead of cowardly. He's never had to lay himself out, explain himself from the beginning, and he's certainly never wanted to. He knows that he's less than the sum of his parts.

"Yeah," says Roxy, equally fond. "He's a fuckin' trip. If you hurt him, I'm gonna break your kneecaps."

"Of course."

"I figured it was obvious. But, hey!" She splays out her fingers, gesturing expansively. "Communication. It's great. Simplifies things. Give it a shot."

Dirk steps away from the door, and looks at the warmth of the kitchen entrance. Feeling outside of himself, he ascends the stairs, and sits on the top step, waiting for Ford and Roxy to finish. He can hear their voices, still, but can't make out their words. He needs to remember what a normal heart rate feels like, and achieve it through calm breathing and force of will.

It doesn't take much longer for them to go back inside. Ford looks pleased, as does Roxy. Dirk has literally nothing to worry about, it seems. Is he still worried? Yes, because that is one of his many talents. He stands from his perch on the stairs, and slides down the banister.

Roxy greets him by opening up her arms for a hug. "Look at you. I can't stay mad at that blank-ass face."

"It's good to see you," he says, hugging her awkwardly, the only way he knows how to hug. He looks at Ford and raises his eyebrows. "You okay? Feeling just the right amount of threatened?"

Ford laughs, and raises his hands in surrender. "She's made it clear that hurting you is not an option, should I want to continue walking. And I do."

"Cool." Dirk doesn't say that Ford could crush his soul with a sentence fragment, because that is probably too much information. Roxy pulls back, and makes a beeline for the lunch spread. 

It should feel awkward, jamming another chair into the kitchen and entertaining an unexpected guest. Dirk's been there for weeks, and he still feels out of sorts about his status as a semi-permanent, semi-unwanted resident. The Pines family is a family, with their own rhythms and silent understandings. Roxy has as much experience with families as Dirk does, if not less. And yet, it works.

She asks Mabel about her summer plans. Stan mentions working at the Shack while the twins are in town, and she asks about that—about running a business, and about the worst customers he's ever had. Stan launches into a story, and Dirk realizes that Stan loves telling stories, he loves talking about himself, and about his weird job. Roxy laughs at all the right parts, and Stan laughs, too. Everyone laughs.

Roxy jumps straight in. When Roxy jumps straight in, she floats.

"What do you do, Roxy?" Asks Ford, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. "I assume you're unemployed. How do you pass the time?"

"Yeah, work sucks, so I don't do it," she says. "I help run the Carapacian kingdom, which is mostly just boppin' around, solving problems. It's fun! I get to meet people, and hang out with my friends."

"Roxy," says Dirk, "ruling a kingdom is a job. It's a very important job, some might say." He hears how quiet he's being, but is once again powerless to change it up.

Roxy waves a hand and peels the crust off of a slice of bread, eating it first. "Rogue for life! You can lead her to the throne, but you can't make her do paperwork, 'cuz it blows chunks for real."

Dirk watches Dipper try to make sense of his rapidly bizarrifying universe, and smiles. Dirk says, "A good point well made. As always."

Roxy smiles, and gently kicks him under the table. "Thanks, sweets. So, what are we doing today?"

Ford has plans with Dipper until the evening, and Dirk's head isn't so far up his own ass that he can't appreciate their importance. Mabel is down to hang out, and even as she finishes her lunch, suggests pancakes.

"Lazy Susan is wonderful, you've gotta meet her! And nothing washes down a bread product quite like another bread product." Mabel shrugs, and the beads on her sweater jangle. "I don't understand the science, but I respect it."

"Science rules," Roxy tells Mabel. "That's the true shit, as far as science is concerned."

Mabel's mouth scrunches up to the side, and she strokes an invisible beard. "You aren't my brother," she says, pensive, "so I can't threaten you with punches. But the potty mouth, I could do without."

Roxy had wholeheartedly ignored everyone else on the subject, but hearing it from Mabel herself makes her cover her mouth in embarrassment. "Aww man. Sorry, Mabel. Force of potty habit."

And just like that, they're thick as thieves. As they head out to the diner, they've linked arms, Roxy having to bend over to do so. They're discussing a slew of different topics, from the popularity of black lipstick to what makes Stan's car backfire so often. Dirk does his best to recognize what is actually happening (Roxy doing him a favor by diffusing the tension) instead of what his brain insists is happening (Dirk becoming the third wheel).

Before he follows them out, he moves to Ford's side. Ford is collecting maps into a satchel, and Dirk slides his hand into the crook of his elbow, just because. Ford looks up and smiles at him, surprised, somehow, by his presence.

"Heading out," Dirk says, meaning both that he is and that Ford is. "Meet us later? This is one of the many times having a cell phone would come in handy, by the way."

Ford kisses Dirk just above the ear, and Dirk wants to climb in his satchel and go with him. He doesn't know how he's feeling, but his massive gayness has never faltered.

"Go spend time with your friend," says Ford, his warm tone softening the dismissal. "If you aren't back by dinner at seven, I'll head down to meet you at Greasy's Diner. How does that sound?"

Reasonable. Dirk could pretend to like being reasonable. He used to be a spy; he used to lie to survive. "I miss you already," he says, totally missing the mark.

"It amazes me," says Ford, "that you are still so skittish around Mabel. She's fine, Dirk. You'll be fine. Now  _ go." _

Instead of arguing that he totally isn't intimidated by a thirteen-year-old girl, he kisses Ford on the cheek and goes. He passes by Stan, who is reading a magazine, and Dipper, who is reading a journal. Dirk guesses neither of them cared to see the domestic bliss in which he had just indulged. Dipper's ears are pink.

"Later, hotstuff," loudly announces Dirk, and closes the door on Dipper's answering, "Oh,  _ come on!" _

-

The diner looks like it was built out of the shell of a train, or perhaps a particularly retro trailer. Going anywhere with Mabel is like accompanying the Fonz; she is both a local celebrity and, seemingly, everyone's friend. The only person she doesn't greet with a smile is a goth-punk demon with a terrible voice. She still waves to him, though.

"Don't make eye contact," Mabel urges Roxy. "Bodacious T is a heartbreaker."

"Color me intrigued to the max," says Roxy, but she follows Mabel's lead. Dirk looks right at Bodacious T, confused. Is he a human, or not? Pretty much everyone in Gravity Falls is human. Ford would have mentioned if one of the locals was an orc or something, surely.

The diner is as full as can be expected, at three PM on a Wednesday. Susan is behind the counter, and some other Mabel fans turn to wave as she enters. Dirk scans the room, noting faces that he's seen before at the supermarket. He pauses as he spots two dark-haired people at the far booth, and immediately reaches for Roxy's arm.

"Huh?" She looks from Dirk to where he stares, transfixed. She freezes. "Oh, my God."

"What?" Mabel triangulates to where they are staring, but is nonplussed. "What are we looking at?"

Sitting at the far booth is one very normal looking man. He is handsome in a bland way, with hair that looks fine and a smile that is perfectly acceptable. His posture is neither good nor bad, and his collared white shirt looks neither new nor old. He is smiling his normal smile at Jane Crocker, who is dressed like she is on a date.

Roxy does not look down at Mabel to explain, "That's our friend Janey. She said she was gonna meet up with us later."

"Oh!" Mabel nods, appreciative. "She's the lady with Tad Strange?"

Dirk remains paralyzed with joy for another second. Then, he is immediately behind Tad Strange, kneeling on the seat in the booth one over. Tad does not turn around, not even when Roxy slides into the seat next to Dirk.

Dirk has been smiling fit to burst, lately. Ford is wonderful, and now Roxy is around to make him laugh. Rarely has he ever grinned such a shit-eating grin as he and Roxy collab on an incredibly obscene hand gesture behind Tad.

Jane's eyes widen. Clearly, she has not thought this through. It's a small town; dating someone in secret is impossible, even when you are simply trying to keep the info from normal humans. Roxy pushes her cheeks together to obnoxiously smooch the air, and Dirk fans himself, pretending to overheat with lust.

"No," says Jane. "God. Please."

Mabel walks over to the table and greets Tad happily, distracting him from Jane's reaction. "Hey, Tad! Eaten any good bread lately?"

"Yes," says Tad. His voice is a surprise—it's remarkably deep and soothing. "Just the other day, I had a slice of some wonderful whole wheat toast."

Roxy mouths,  _ What the fuck? _

Jane covers her red face with her hands. She's wearing a cute bracelet, and her hair has a few bobby pins with daisy charms on the end. She looks nice. Dirk makes a note to mention this later, when he isn't pretending to massage Tad's (not broad, but not bad) shoulders and raise his eyebrows significantly.

"Tad," Jane says, emerging behind the safety of her hands, "I'm sorry to cut this short. Unfortunately, these are my friends."

Dirk holds a hand to his heart, the metaphorical arrow of her disdain lodged in it. He quickly stops pulling faces, too, and Roxy changes her gesture into a benign thumbs up. Tad turns in his seat, and smiles at them.

"Normally, that would not be unfortunate," says Tad.

Dirk says, "Nothing gets past you, man," just as Roxy says, "That's our Jane, such a way with words."

Mabel sits down next to Tad, effectively trapping him in the booth. "What's the rush? Stay a while! Let's chat! Hi," she says, offering her hand to Jane, "I'm Mabel, local legend and town sweetheart." Her sweater's sleeves are so long that, at first, there is no hand to shake. She wiggles it free.

"I know who you are, Mabel," Jane says, and shakes the offered, revealed hand.  "Dirk's mentioned you over the phone, and Tad's talked a bit about what's made you so legendary."

Tad, inasmuch as he emotes at all, looks stricken. "Honey," he says. "We aren't meant to speak of those days. It is a Gravity Falls town ordinance."

"Breaking laws to tell your honey all the  _ hot goss?" _ Roxy stands and slides in next to Jane, bringing an arm around her shoulders. "Sounds like your priorities're in order, Tadly."

Jane squirms, but looks vaguely pleased. Tad smiles at Jane, and Dirk stands from the adjacent booth.

Dirk says, "Coffee? Mabel, coffee?"

"Hot chocolate," she says. "Light on the hot, heavy on the chocolate. Susan knows what I like."

"So this is really happening," says Jane, voice hollow, as Dirk turns from the booth.

It is. Crowded into the same booth, they sip warm drinks and pick at a stack of blueberry pancakes. Tad is bland, but sweet, like healthy children's cereal. He's also clearly into Jane, which makes up for a lot of perceived shortcomings in Dirk's mind. Mabel tells Roxy about her plans to dominate the high school social scene, and Jane tells Dirk how she and Tad met.

"It's a charming town," she says, and plays with an empty packet of sugar, rolling the paper between her fingers. "We certainly saw a lot of it, trying to find this version. And that Soos--talking about all those mysterious goings-on, it's natural to be intrigued. I stopped by once without you, just planning on... well, nothing, really. Maybe seeing one of those mysteries in action."

She's a gutsy gumshoe. He shouldn't be surprised. He nods to Tad. "Are you a local mystery?"

"Heavens, no," he says, and picks up his glass of water—he didn't order any coffee. "I'm as ordinary as they come."

Jane giggles, and adjusts her glasses. Dirk feels like he is missing something.

"We met downtown," she says. "I asked him for directions, and he asked where I was headed—his work, turns out—and then..." She shrugs, still giggly. "We just kept walking and talking. It was..."

Tad nodded, also smiling. "It was normal," he says, "to ask a pretty woman for her number, at that point."

_ "Tad!"  _ Said Mabel, tuning in just in time to be scandalized. "You scallywag!"

Dirk offers his hand to high-five Jane. She elbows him, embarrassed, but doesn't leave him hanging.

After a while, Tad does have to go to work. They rearrange themselves in the booth to let him and Jane out, and pretend not to notice when Tad kisses her goodbye. It's cute, in a chaste, 1950s TV couple way. Roxy sits next to Mabel, and Jane and Dirk are side by side.

"Well," says Jane, rearranging the drinks so they're all in the right places, "that was horrible, but I forgive you."

"She's an angel," Roxy tells Mabel. "Puttin' up with us jerks."

Dirk takes his coffee in hand, considering switching to decaf so he doesn't start vibrating through walls. It's his fourth serving of the day; Ford drinks it like water, and it's become habit to match him cup for cup. "I'm a jerk who missed you," he says. "If that helps anything."

"I gathered," she says, and looks up at him. He's surprised to see concern on her face. "How are you doing?"

He raises his eyebrows, and looks over at Roxy for a clue. She is distracting herself by cutting a pancake into a silhouette of a cat's face, and is absolutely not looking at him.

"Me?" He asks, blinking at Jane. "I'm fine. I'm great, actually."

Jane blinks back at him. "Really," she says.

Dirk has a strange feeling of vertigo. He doesn't mind long drops from places—there is no reason for him to fear them—so it takes him a moment to place it. Jane's eyes are bluer than nature, and can look straight through his shades to his heart. "Yeah?"

"Really," she repeats, and leans on one elbow, body turned to face his. "Two weeks of nothing, followed by days of whining and moping for no reason I can see. Living in a house with, if Mabel is anything to go by, a family of energetic extroverts. Messages at four, five, six A.M."

Dirk is looking at Roxy, again. She's giving her pancakes whiskers.

If Jane had a light to shine in his eyes, he knows in his bones that she would do it. "You have a fight with your sweetheart, and give Roxy a truly awful scare, and you're _ 'great, actually,'  _ Dirk Strider?"

There's a moment of tense silence. Dirk is looking at the Formica table top, going over his memories with a fine-toothed comb, trying to figure out why her impression of events doesn't match his own. He asked Roxy to come—well, more like begged her—just yesterday.

The feeling of vertigo intensifies, and Dirk checks his phone for the first time that day.

TG: omfg i just got this

TG: are you ok?

TG: dirk?

TG: ????

TG: hello?

TG: ???????????????????????

TG: yu were listening to sad music so i stopped payin attention

TG: are yokay???

Dirk scrolls. And scrolls.

TG: dirk????????????????????????????????????????????????????????//

"Oh," says Dirk, from the bottom of a well. He can't even pretend there's no signal under the Shack; it's spotty, but it's there, and he's used it a bunch of times.

"Oh," says Jane. She takes a sip, and it's a wonder the coffee doesn't turn to ice in her mouth.

Mabel drums her fingers on the table. "Yikes," she says. "What does your phone say?"

He looks back down at it, watching the messages all go on Read, and pockets it again. "It says I'm a bad friend," he says. "And that I scared Roxy for no reason, and I should have been in closer contact. I should apologize for worrying her." He puts his hand on the table, palm up, right by the desecrated remains of the pancakes. "I'm sorry, Rox. I wasn't thinking."

Roxy takes his hand. She doesn't even make him wait for it, the way she probably should. "No," she agrees. "You mega weren't. But—y'know. I saw you were fine when I got there."

Dirk nods, chastined. "And... I should apologize to you, Jane," he starts, getting ahead of himself. He considers all that she said, and picks a topic at random. "For all the early morning texts. That's—inconsiderate."

Jane sighs, long-suffering, and puts her mug down. "Dirk, for Heaven's sake. I've known you for most of my life, at this point; I put my phone on silent when I want to sleep. This isn't about that."

"Oh," Dirk says again. She's lost him.

"It's the contents of what you're sending, in those lonely morning hours," she explains. She looks around the table, giving both Roxy and Mabel different, unreadable looks before continuing. "Dirk, you're one of my dearest friends, and I love you. But you're miserable, and you're an idiot for not noticing."

"You've got two speeds," says Roxy, nodding sadly and squeezing his hand. "Zero and a billion. Ford is your billion. The Shack kinda seems like your zero."

"Even Dipper's noticed," says Mabel. "And he's a teen boy."

Dirk puts down his phone and looks inward. Is he unhappy? At times, it feels like he's asking a fish if water is wet—he barely has a frame of reference, most days. Ford is kind, and good, and smells the way sinking into a comfy couch feels. He knows how he feels about Ford.

The Shack doesn't have WiFi. Everyone is so loud, and they keep having meals all at the same time, in the same room, even though there is barely space. Dirk hasn't written a single lyric in weeks. He wonders how his plants back home are doing—Jane would hardly have let them die, but he hadn't even thought to ask her to babysit.

"I just," he starts, and finds himself looking at Mabel, of all people. "I want to be part of his life."

Mabel strokes an invisible mustache.

"I like him a lot," Dirk adds. "And he loves you."

"I like you fine, weird prince guy from the future and the past," says Mabel. "You know that, right? I wear my heart on my sleeve!" She turns, and points at the embroidered heart on her bicep. "See? Boop!"

Dirk is certain that Mabel would like a house fire if it complimented her hairband, but he doesn't say so.

"God." It's his turn to bury his face in his hands, rubbing circles into his forehead and sighing. "I don't know how long he's going to let me stay. We haven't talked about it. I just thought it would—you know. Work out. I like him."

"So you keep saying," says Jane, the woman with infinite patience. "And have kept saying, for years, to anyone who would listen."

Dirk swallows, and admits, "Roxy, I was eavesdropping earlier."

"Sky's blue," says Roxy.

"He said we don't talk about—that I don't talk about anything of substance, but we're working on it." He drops his hands, and leans forward on his elbows. "We are."

He doesn't say exactly how they are working on it. It's too new, and very personal, and he imagines that the first few tests will be just between them. He wants them to be, at least. He wants to scan his mind, and then Ford's, and say the perfect thing in the perfect voice to make Ford understand him. After that, everything else will fall into place. Dipper will believe that he's not a bad person, and Stan won't feel weird in his own damn house. Dirk will be as transparent and likable as Soos.

Ford deserves that.

"Well," says Jane, slightly mollified. "That's good."

Dirk mopes into his coffee, and plans to continue for the foreseeable future. Mabel heaves a big sigh, and Roxy nudges her with her elbow. "Thinkin' big thoughts, Mabelino?"

"I just don't get it," she admits. "You're like, totally psyched to be with the man of your dreams. And Grunkle Ford's a nice guy, so I can even overlook how weird it is that you feel that way."

"Thanks," says Dirk.

"But is this really what 'happily ever after' looks like?" She throws up her hands in despair. "You find each other after a century of looking, and then it's just awkward talking and misunderstandings? I thought all that got out of your system in high school!"

Roxy shrugs a shoulder, and exchanges a look with Dirk. "Maybe. We never went."

"What?" Mabel boggles. "That's an option? Don't tell Dipper, he'll immediately try not to go."

"There wasn't..." Dirk shakes his head. "Man. Am I just the bearer of bad news? Is that my thing? You tell her, Jane."

Jane pats Dirk's shoulder sympathetically. "There wasn't a high school for them to go to," she explains. "They're from a now-obsolete version of the future where Texas is underwater and they were the only humans left. I was homeschooled after my first year of high school, because there were assassins after me. If it's really the place where people learn how to communicate, we're plumb out of luck."

Mabel's eyes are huge. Dirk could swear that she should already know all this, from Dipper's first data mining mission over dinner. However, he gets that it would take a few times for the ridiculousness of his life to really sink in. She laces her fingers together, as if in prayer. "Your backstory is as tragic as I thought it would be," she says, which could mean almost anything. She continues, "I blossomed into the confident comedian you see before you through hours of social interactions. I'm basically the best talker I know. You want my advice, Dirk?"

Dirk finds that he does. "Shoot."

"You get buff by working out," she says. "And you get smart by studying. Practice talking with Mabel, and all this awkward stuff will be a thing of the past in no time!"

Dirk exchanges looks with Roxy and Jane. They nod to him, approving of the idea. At the end of the day, what does he have to lose?

"Sure," he says. "I mean, if you aren't already sick of talking with me about this."

"Love that confidence!" Mabel says, and pulls her hair back into a ponytail before tucking it down the back of her sweater. She holds out a hand for Jane's glasses, and Jane, amused, gives them to her. Mabel over-corrects her posture, chest puffed out, and smiles hugely at Dirk.

"Hey, beautiful!" Her voice is lower by a few octaves. It's impressive, though of course otherwise she sounds nothing like Ford. "Science, science, science."

Dirk falls blank, because it's that or scream with laughter. Roxy has both hands over her mouth, and looks like she's about to cry with joy. Jane, squinting without her glasses, waves to Mabel. "Why, Ford! I've heard so much about you. It's wonderful to finally meet you face to face!"

"Hi, Jane!" Mabel's voice cracks, and she coughs a few times before resuming the role. "I love meeting Dirk's people! Do you like mysteries? Me too! Let's be best friends."

Jane laughs, and nudges Dirk. "Your boyfriend likes me! This is going well."

Dirk's neutral expression is in danger of splitting into a smile. Mabel catches his eye, and winks at him. He snorts without smiling, and it kind of hurts.

"Hey, baby!" Mabel says, and leans forward on one elbow. "Let's talk about stuff. Like bingo nights, and orthopedic back pillows. I'm old!"

"Yeah," says Dirk, voice wobbling over a snicker. "You are. Hey, Ford."

"Hi!"

Dirk sighs, and pillows his chin on both hands. "It's hard to talk to you sometimes. Because I get distracted by how handsome you are."

"Gross!" Mabel says in her own voice. Then, resuming character, "I mean, thanks! Is there something you wanna tell me?"

It's not like Dirk has a list. He takes a moment to gather himself, and think of where all of his complaints are coming from. If there is a central knot in all of this, he wants to phrase it in as non-pushy a way as he can. He wants to take this roleplay seriously, if only because Mabel is being a champion of patience along with Jane and Roxy.

"I... yeah, I do." He takes off his shades, and fiddles with them, doing his best to make eye contact with Mabel as he speaks. "I really like... I like you a lot. And I'm on my phone a lot, but that doesn't... I do want to be here with you. Just—I don't know what I'm doing, a lot of the time, with your family? I don't know what families are like. Yours is literally the first one I've interacted with, and it's tripping me out, a little." He smiles, but it feels brittle on his face. "I feel like I'm bad at sharing?"

Mabel appears moved near to tears by his awkward confession. "Aw, Dirk," she says, back in her normal voice, "You're fine! If this is about Dipper, he's just paranoid and possessive. I'm telling you, he'll get over it, and you'll be best friends by the end of the summer."

Jane turns to Dirk with a bit of a wince. "Two and a half more months?"

"I'm tired of watering your plants, man," says Roxy. "The power of love can send you home every couple of days to take care of Fergus the ficus, okay?"

Dirk puts his shades back on, taking comfort in the cooling layer of darkness between him and his life. "Mabel, I'm paranoid and possessive, too. That's part of why you're pretending to be a sixty-three-year-old man in a diner."

Mabel pulls her hair out from her sweater, and pulls off Jane's glasses. "Man, ow. I do not like wearing these.—Listen. You've practiced saying what you wanna say. Now you can go say it! Once Grunkle Ford is back from his treasure hunt thing with Dipper, anyway."

"I'm jealous," Dirk says, meaning for it to be a joke. It doesn't sound like a joke. Probably because it isn't, but he's still embarrassed. "Of Dipper. And before you say anything, I know that's ridiculous."

"He's a small, sweaty nerd," Mabel agrees.

"And I'm a tall one with, I hope, normal amounts of sweat where appropriate," says Dirk. "I feel dumb for having these issues. Ford's perfect. I just need to calm the hell down.—Heck down, sorry."

"It's okay," she says, waving a hand. "You were raised by wolves or something, I don't really get it."

"More like a puppet," says Dirk.

Mabel does some pretty advanced jazz hands. "Tragic backstory!"

Roxy blows a raspberry, and takes Jane's glasses from Mabel to try on herself. "Wowza, Janey, you're blind!"

"Yes," says Jane. "Particularly right now."

"So Mabel," continues Roxy, pushing Jane's glasses up her nose. "You're the relationships expert at the table. What's Stan's deal? He single? Asking because he's cute."

"Why are all you future weirdos into my Grunkles!" Mabel pulls a face that rides the line between grotesque and oddly charming. "You're a woman in the prime of her life! Aim higher!"

They finish their drinks and put the pancake mess out of its misery. Mabel shows them to the jukebox, where Jane queues up the socially required 21 plays of  _ What's New, Pussycat? _ As they leave the diner to the groans of the patrons, Mabel takes point, and leads them away from the Shack.

"Uh." Dirk looks back at the diner, and then at his leaving friend group. "I thought we were gonna stay, actually. I was—Ford was going to meet me here, or back at home."

Roxy shrugs. "That plan was dumb! We're headed to the arcade. I have stuffed animals to win."

"Alternatively," says Jane, "you could stop off at your actual home, and clean the mold from your shelf in the fridge. You left a full head of lettuce in there, you know. Jake has named it."

"Then it would break his heart if I tossed it," says Dirk. "Arcade. Sure."

"Arcade!" Yells Mabel. Then, "Who's Jake?"

Dirk adds that to the list of things he might need to tell Ford. "My best friend. Also possibly the reason why us future weirdos are immune to youthful good looks."

They dominate the arcade, and then loiter in a store called Edgy On Purpose. Jane tries on a leather jacket with knockoff band logos on it, and Dirk scores a sample of black eye paint. Mabel insists that they stop by a weird animatronic hoedown place, but ends up being a little spooked. "Bad memories," she says. "It's a shame, because some of these robots are totally cool looking!"

"They don't have a horse one," Dirk points out.

"Pobody's nerfect!" Says Mabel.

By the time they leave the mall, it's growing dark. Mabel rubs her hands on her bare legs, shivering. "Darn these cold Oregon nights. And darn my adorable skort! Why does fashion come at such a high price?"

"You should have bought those terrible distressed pants back at Edgy," says Roxy. "They were a men's large, but, you know. Hipster large."

After their double lunch, Dirk isn't hungry, but his phone is telling him it is past dinnertime. He hasn't missed a meal with the Pines in his entire stay. He doesn't necessarily like the tenseness and the chewing, but he doesn't like being without a routine, either. Routines, at least, give him structure to follow in the hopes that it will make things easier.

"Long walk back," says Jane, snuggling into her sensible cardigan. "And I'm in kitten heels, more's the pity."

Roxy pats Dirk on the back. "We might have to ditch you here and come back some other time. Mama needs her Netflix."

Dirk sighs wistfully. He has no idea what his blogs are doing. Texts are fine, but images take forever to load on his phone. He thinks of warm turtlenecks and stubble rubbing against his cheek, and remains strong. "Have fun. No spoilers. See you soon? I'll text you tomorrow."

"You'd better," says Roxy. She pulls him into a hug, and whispers into his ear. "Take care, okay? Tell him how you feel."

Dirk leans into her, enjoying her warmth. "About what?"

"Everything," she says. When she pulls back, she's smiling brightly again. She high-fives Mabel goodbye, and begins to float.

Watching someone shift dimensions is off-putting, like a movie special effect that is slightly too realistic. It gives Dirk the uncanny valley shivers, even though he's done it before. Mabel averts her eyes, even while waving at Roxy and Jane. After they're gone, she turns to Dirk, looking up expectantly.

"Piggyback ride?" She suggests. "I'll owe you one."

Dirk considers the winding road back to town, and decides that his legs are tired. "Better idea," he says. "Unless—are you afraid of heights?"

She wiggles her hand back and forth. "How high are we talkin'?"

Dirk's feet leave the ground, and he extends a hand to her. "Treetops high. Not a foot higher, I promise."

"Dirk!" She leaps into his arms, and he holds her bridal style, one arm under her knees and the other supporting her shoulders. She loops her arms around his neck, and points out toward the Shack. "Onward and upward, Your Majesty!"

They ascend into the dusk, Mabel a wiggly space heater in his arms. From this angle, Gravity Falls looks tiny, but warm, with yellow lights on in all the windows. He can't believe that he'd doubled the number of places in town he's been in just this one day. Maybe staying in Ford's line of sight constantly had been taking a toll on him, psychologically.

"Dirk, this is amazing!" Mabel points down at a cluster of red-headed men. "Look! The Corduroys! And look!" They pass by the water tower. "Robbie's muffin! It's still there!"

Mabel's enthusiasm about this place brightens Dirk's mood. If he's honest, he's been pretty myopic about his life, here. He wants to be part of Ford's "happily ever after," in this post-Bill, post-almost-Armageddon world. Mabel went out of her way today to give Dirk some hints on actually having his own life, here. He doesn't know what to say.

He will soon, though. The thought makes his heart even lighter.

"Why do you ever walk anywhere?" Mabel laughs, kicking out her legs. "This is the best!"

Dirk shrugs, and she tightens her grip around her shoulders. "I don't like the cold," he says. "Winds up here can be rough."

"Welcome to Oregon," she says. "I'll knit you a sweater. What's your favorite animal?"

In a distant clearing that is less distant by the moment, they see the Shack, the light within it a beacon guiding them home. "Surprise me," he says.

They land gently on the lawn in front of the porch. Mabel gives him an extra squeeze before dismounting. Before they can walk through the front door, it is thrown open with a bang.

Ford is framed in light, expression stricken, tension visible in every line of his body. He's wearing his coat, as it prepared to fly out into the night on his own. When he sees Dirk, his eyes widen, and he breaks into a huge smile.

"Dirk!" He says. "Dinner ended forty-three minutes ago. I called ahead to Lazy Susan, but she said you'd left hours ago. Where were you?"

Dirk is momentarily speechless, and so Mabel fills him in. "Out on a shopping adventure! There were goth kids and video game nerds and Roxy taught me how to do cat-eye stuff with eyeliner! See?" She points to her eyes, smudged with glittery blackness.

Ford composes himself in steps. He no longer hunches forward, one foot out the door. A muscle twitches in his cheek, but he covers it admirably, smiling and nodding at Mabel. "That sounds very fun. For nearly six hours, you did this? Out and about town?"

Mabel nods, and slips inside. "Then Dirk took me flying! Did you know he could do that? I was blown away! Literally, almost! Winds  _ are  _ pretty strong up there, who knew?"

Dirk steps inside, gently guiding Ford back with a hand on his chest. They stand in the entrance together, and Dirk closes the door. Ford's heart is pounding, and from this close, he can see Ford consciously lengthening his breaths.

"You're scared," says Dirk, too surprised to dance around the subject. "Why?"

Ford's smile is officially forced, and he avoids Dirk's eye. "I didn't know where you were," he says. "I always know where you are, within a radius of a hundred feet. You never gave me your phone number."

Dirk doesn't remember his own phone number. He hasn't had to give it to anyone since he was thirteen. "I'm sorry," he says. "I should have called. I thought you'd be busy, or—I don't know. I'm sorry."

Ford rolls his shoulders back, and tugs at the lapels of his coat, straightening himself out. "It's fine," he says, sounding anything but. "I—I simply prefer to know what you're up to, that's all. In the normal, human way. I'm not panicking."

"Okay," says Dirk, looking down the hall. Mabel has already disappeared up the stairs to tell Dipper about her day, and Stan is parked in front of the TV. Dirk's hand moves to Ford's collar, and then to his jaw, holding him in place and feeling his pulse. "I'm here."

They stand together, Ford's breathing evening out, Dirk's skin slowly warming up from the wind. He thinks about how Mabel called Dipper possessive and paranoid, and wonders if he came by it honestly. 

"When we fought the Anti-Sloth," Dirk says, "and I flew away. You didn't seem... it wasn't like this."

Ford shrugs a shoulder, and puts his hand on top of Dirk's, holding it to his face. "I knew you needed space. I gave you a window of five hours before I went searching for you. You returned to the Shack well within that time frame. I had no reason to be concerned."

Dirk's mouth quirks into a baffled smile. "Why five hours?"

"That is what my research suggested," he says, tone one of stating the obvious. "When partners have a disagreement or misunderstanding, sometimes one or both parties may need time alone to fully process their emotions. Most experts say that it could take days, but with your powers of observation and general intelligence, I knew it would be faster."

That borders on nonsense, but Dirk picks out an interesting morsel anyway. "Your research."

"About relationships," he says. He raises an eyebrow on Dirk. "Did you think I was going to go into this blind? I have half a shelf devoted solely to interpersonal skill development."

The easy way Ford says "relationships" makes warmth spread from Dirk's heart to his fingertips. He leans in, touching their foreheads together, and tries not to laugh. He doesn't want Ford to take it the wrong way.

"I'm not sure how to say this," says Dirk, "so I'm just going to say it poorly. This is... very cute."

Ford grumbles. "Hmm. Objectively, my reaction doesn't exceed what could be expected, given the data I had—or, more accurately, did  _ not  _ have about your whereabouts. Gravity Falls is a dangerous place. You know that."

"I'm buying you a phone," he says, and brushes a kiss onto Ford's lips. "And I'm teaching you how to use Pesterchum. And, for my final trick, I'm going to go take a shower and meet you in bed, okay?"

Ford nods, still visibly out of sorts, and gives him a return peck on the mouth. Dirk floats through the TV room, smiling like a complete doofus. He doesn't even care.

Stan looks up, raises an eyebrow at him, and then continues watching the old cowboy on the screen. "You're both morons," he says.

Dirk does laugh, then. He feels like he could sleep for a week, and he very much looks forward to doing it next to Ford. Ford, the paranoid, possessive man who said so matter-of-factly that they're in a  _ relationship. _ It's a statement of fact, and yet it makes Dirk feel warm and fuzzy.

It took him a long time to get there, but the final feeling he processes that day is hope, pure and simple, for the future.


	8. Group Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the late chapter. Perhaps "weekly" was optimistic...
> 
> Thanks again for all the lovely words and kudos!

Ford holds up a red mug. "What color is this?"

Dirk lies back in his chair, which is half dentist's office and half "hacking into the Matrix." There is a prototype node on his head, with spidery dendrites along his brow and cheek, connected by colorful wires to the chair and eventually the screens behind him. The light of the basement, always fairly cold, is now almost entirely an unnatural green.

_ Red,  _ thinks Dirk. "Red," say the computer speakers, where they've momentarily routed the audio to go. The voice he’s made sounds amazing, like he's never screamed or smoked once in his life. He should be on the radio.

One of the full-color screens shows his brain, monitoring blood flow as well as highlighting the chemicals activating the prefrontal area. That's where honesty lives, more or less, and the brain doesn’t have physical buttons to push or switches to flick. Thus, chemicals.

"What is your name?" Asks Ford, taking notes on a clipboard.

"Dirk Strider," say the speakers.

They've dubbed this cocktail of chemicals Truth Serum: hyocine, veratol, lugenzadrine, and a teeny zip of serotonin and dopamine. Telling the truth isn't just easy; it feels good, too. The veratol also helps dampen any embarrassment he might be feeling about his own honesty.

Dirk's brain is stubborn, but both Dirk and Ford have experience with mapping and driving minds.

Ford asks, "What did I eat for breakfast this morning?"

"You didn't," say the speakers. Dirk raises an eyebrow at the thoughts that have been weeded out, still displayed as text:  _ You never eat breakfast,  _ reads one line. One line simply repeats the word "coffee" over and over. It's possible that Ford has gotten Dirk addicted to caffeine. More so than he was before, anyway.

"Good." Ford checks something off of his list, smiling to himself. "Now, onto something more complex. Before we incorporate the HUD lenses, we need to sort your reactions into four categories. These categories will be the four general labels which are most representative of your thought processes. Sarcastic, honest, seductive—whatever they may be, we need to know where in the brain they're coming from, and at what rate."   
  
Dirk nods. Ford tends to talk through his experiments to further his own understanding. Dirk thinks of it as the Rubber Duck method from computer programming, but more obsessive and  _ sans  _ duck.

"I'm going to ask you something to which I don't know the answer. After the test is complete, I'll ask you, separate from the machine, to rate your answer on a few different scales, including honesty and accuracy. Do you understand?"

_ He's so hot when he has a clipboard, _ reads one line.

Dirk swallows, mouth dry from the hyocine. "Yes," say the speakers.

Ford makes another check mark. "What is your opinion," he says, "of the music group BABBA?"

The screens all light up with green text, and the memory and language centers of his brain light up with yellow and orange. The rainbow of neon reminds Dirk of a really tacky Christmas display. The text scrolls:  _ How the fuck is ABBA a transuniversal constant, Bell bottoms, Proof that history doesn't progress in a straight line, His favorite band? _

"I've never heard a BABBA song," the speakers say. Dirk shrugs. "If they're similar to my Universe's ABBA, I have no strong feelings. If you like them, I would like to listen to them."

"Really? I see." Ford takes a few long-handed notes, and flips to the next page. "Let's change the subject again. I'm going to give you a set of images, now."

Dirk nods. The chair isn't particularly comfortable, and he idly watches the thought  _ My ass hurts _ scroll across a screen.

"Imagine that you are on the beach," says Ford. "To your right, you see a swing set, with two empty swings. To your left, you see a sailboat. Which one interests you more?"

Dirk watches the functional magnetic resource video of his brain as he processes the images. He imagines plastic swings, weathered by the sea breeze and creaking as they move. The sailboat is barely a sketch of one, in his mind, with a rounded bottom and one triangular sail.

"The swings," say the speakers. Dirk wasn't aware that he had decided, but that still feels like the right answer.

Ford hums. "Interesting. Can you tell me why?"

_ Obvious childhood image, Alone above the ocean with no beaches in sight, Somewhere beyond the sea, somewhere waiting for me-- _

"There's two of them." Dirk runs his tongue over his teeth, and tries to get the song out of his head. "The implied company appeals to me."

They isolate thoughts that aren't useful—popular culture links that add nothing to the conversation, lines of pure doubt and backtracking—and try to isolate their inspiration. A lot of it is just Dirk being Dirk, so they can't delete it, but they can adjust the programming so those thoughts aren't the ones being voiced.

"I like your turtleneck," the speakers volunteer, right as they're wrapping up.

Ford pauses in untangling two wires. "You've seen me in this a thousand times."

"I like your turtleneck," the speakers repeat. Dirk pushes the release on his temple node, and says in his usual voice, "I've thought it before. A thousand times, I guess. It's a good look for you."

Ford exhales a laugh through his nose, and unattaches Dirk from the chair with a series of flicking clasps and pressing buttons. "It's efficient, and comfortable. Anything else is an accident."

"Still," insists Dirk, sitting up and rubbing at the red marks on his face. "Anyway. You need more v-necks. You in a nice cotton tee would be efficient in ways that might surprise you."

"I'll keep that in mind," says Ford, eyes warm.

They run through some of the stored code together, isolating where they went overboard with a few of the chemicals. It took a while to get the cocktail right; on one memorable occasion, Dirk felt so good telling the truth that it was difficult for both of them to stay on task. Not a bad thing, per se, but it didn't get the Prompter done any faster.

Ford locks up a few of the more sensitive measures, and turns to collect his horologist's chatelaine—a chain full of the tiniest tools Dirk has ever seen, like a charm bracelet for a mouse—to adjust some of the screws in the nodes. Once he gets started there, he'll be mentally unavailable for a while, so Dirk says, "Hey."

"Hmm?" Ford pauses in pulling down his magnifying goggles.

Dirk clears his throat, getting used to actually speaking through his mouth again. "Hey," he says again. "I made this for you."

Which makes it sound like a gift, which it's not. Dirk pulls a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket, and opens it before Ford can get his hopes up. Ford raises his eyebrows and takes it, reading the first few lines aloud.

"'Six to eight, research with Ford,'" he says. "'Eight-fifteen to nine, collecting laundry and other detritus. Nine AM, breakfast at the Shack.'"

Dirk shrugs a shoulder, and puts his hands in his back pockets, trying not to feel stupid. "Just. You know. What I'm up to shouldn't be a mystery, to you. Not that it's anything interesting."

Ford pulls off the magnifying goggles entirely, and smiles sheepishly down at the paper. "Thank you, Dirk. This is very useful."

Dirk's mouth pulls into a smile almost against his will. "I know how into efficiency you are. And—uh, line fourteen is sort of... contingent on something."

Dirk watches Ford's eyes flit down the page. "'Two to six, pack up apartment.'"

"I never formally asked," Dirk says, mouth dry. "I just sort of—showed up. And I know that you saw my suitcase and were like, sure, stick around. But I don't know how long you were thinking, and if you'd rather we take it back a few steps, I totally get it."

Ford looks up from the paper, surprised. "I'm not sure I follow."

Dirk wishes he had kept the nodes on for this conversation. He wishes that fairly constantly, these days. "I've been thinking about this," he says, gesturing to encompass the two of them, "a lot. And it's great, and thinking about it involves a lot of swooning and getting sidetracked, obviously. So it took a while to reach the conclusion that I have hobbies. And I—if there's space in the Mystery Shack for, I don't know, my music stuff—and I have clothes that I miss, back home, and there's this laundry detergent that you don't have here, I've looked. It makes my stuff smell so choice. So I was wondering if I could move in with you?"

Ford blinks at Dirk, and Dirk can see his gears turning. He doesn't know which part of his torrential word vomit is making Ford so unsure, but it's obvious that something is now bothering him. Ford isn't someone Dirk would describe as impulsive about this kind of thing—dangerous stuff, absolutely, and life-altering proclamations, yes, but not simple everyday yes-or-nos. Part of him wants to explain further, but he's pretty positive that's not the issue. What he's managed to say isn't what Perfect Dirk would have said, but continuing to ramble would just hurt his case further.

He betrays himself by adding, "No pressure. You want a week off, that's fine. I've got stuff going on, back home, probably. I'm not what you'd call a 'hands on' ruler of a kingdom, but there are things I could sign. Events to go to. It's not a big deal, is what I'm saying."

"You want to move in here," says Ford. His voice doesn't lift, at the end—this isn't a question. "Into the Mystery Shack, with me."

Dirk swallows, and frantically goes over his own thought process, wondering if he's missed something important. "Yeah," he says, finally. "I do."

Ford runs a hand through his hair, and removes his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. When he resurfaces, glasses in hand, he says, "Why on Earth would you  _ want _ to?"

Dirk's mouth pulls into a thin line. His pulse could be visible at his throat, the way his heart is suddenly pounding. "What do you mean?"

Ford slides his glasses back on, and gestures around the lab, before returning his focus solely to Dirk. "Dirk, my brother made my home into a tourist trap. I didn't even have a bed until I remembered to purchase one a month ago. And even if the Shack were a fully functioning home with all the creature comforts we could ever imagine..." He shakes his head, shoulders drooping. "You're a  _ god _ . You're the creator of an entire universe, an immortal being—and you want to spend your time here? You could be out ruling over a world  _ you  _ made, to your very own specifications!"

It's Dirk's turn to be floored, now. "That's—not how it works," he says, doing his best not to sound hurt. This is a simple misunderstanding, he hopes. "What we made isn't, like, a Land of Chocolate and Blowjobs, it's just a universe. It has its own rules, baked in. I made it in the way college students 'make' their Ektorp from IKEA."

"Just a normal universe," says Ford, smirking in disbelief. "Where you're a ruler of a kingdom, alongside your closest friends. You'd pass that up to spend time in a basement with—"

"You," says Dirk. He hadn’t known he would have to explain that part. "You're here."

Ford rubs his face with a hand, and Dirk can hear the scrape of stubble, feel it against his own cheek. Ford still looks so unsure, and Dirk wants to go out and kill whatever or whoever made this so difficult. Dirk suspects it was himself, but he doesn't mind going to those lengths, either.

"You've measured everything you've won," he says, still disbelieving, "everything you've earned and fought for, against me. And this is the conclusion you've reached?"

Dirk forces a smile onto his face. It feels unnatural, but it's the only way he can think of to soften the blow. "Yeah," he says.

And the thing of it is, he  _ has _ thought about it. He thought about it all last night, wrapped up in Ford's sheets. Ford's nose had been pressed between Dirk's shoulder blades, and every deep breath he took ghosted down Dirk's spine, keeping him awake. It wasn't a snore, and it was just slightly too little pressure to be ticklish, but it was so  _ present,  _ warm and safe, that Dirk's decision had been an easy one.

Roxy was right: the Shack is his zero. But it doesn't have to be. He would do a lot to stay with his one hundred, and moving in doesn't feel like the huge sacrifice Ford is apparently seeing.

"If you'll have me," says Dirk, struggling not to feel small.

Ford has been staring at the workbench behind Dirk, but at that, he looks up once more. He's surprised, but not angry; he's struggling for what to say, but he's not upset. Dirk hangs on to that, and waits for Ford to gather his thoughts.

"I—I suppose I don't understand," he says, hunching his shoulders in a shrug. "I've been called prideful, before, but I've never presumed to pit myself against a whole universe. I... I'd assumed, when you arrived, that I'd have you for a few weeks. Maybe a month. I didn't expect... I didn't dare to expect more."

The idea that Ford has been keeping a secret tally of the days—a countdown timer until Dirk inevitably leaves—makes Dirk's stomach twist. He closes the space between them, unable to keep his hands to himself. He straightens the collar of Ford's trench coat before running his fingers along his shoulder holster, checking the fit and the give of the leather. He's taken these measurements before, but it soothes him, knowing that they're the same. "You're thinking about it wrong," he says, voice flat. "You're making it seem like—like this isn't what I want, to be with the person I've waited for."

"But I'm  _ not,"  _ he says, voice almost hoarse with emotion. "I'm not that person, not anymore. I haven't been that man in decades, so how is this possible?"

Dirk frowns, uncomprehending. Then, he realizes that Ford has yet to be reassured of something Dirk knows to be true, down to his bones. If he'd known Ford was feeling so much doubt, he would have been singing his praises nonstop until his voice gave out. Dirk brings both hands to Ford's face, the stubble he's so fond of now scratching the palms of his hands.

"You're amazing," he says. "And a while back, you said I was—you know." It's difficult to say, even now. "Perfect. And that, to me, means something. If you were less of a dreamboat, maybe I'd bounce, but luckily, that's not the case."

Ford brings one hand to cover one of Dirk's. He still looks lost. "Why play the Game at all," he says, "if winning it doesn't matter to you?"

"You're conflating some junk," says Dirk. "I played the Game because there wasn't any choice in the matter. My friends would die, and I would die, and it would just suck, totally and completely. Winning the Game was about staying alive, not ruling over an alien species with an iron fist. That sort of thing is for Her Imperial Douchebag, not me."

Dirk's throat is raw, as if he's actually said all of the things he's been holding back. Here and now, in the basement lab with Ford, he feels like maybe he could. Looking into this brilliant man's eyes, he tries to envision how that would go. He'd watch Ford realize, in real time, that Dirk is not the hero he might appear to be. He'd see Ford finally put together that Dirk is not a god because he's worthy, but because he died in the right way. That he's fast because he trained, but he can fly because he he'd fallen into a depressed, drugged-out, lonely stupor on the correct quest bed.

Dirk swallows, and keeps his mouth closed. He wants to be with Ford, but he doesn't know if Ford would want to be with him as he is now. He's still in the process of earning the impossible label of "perfect." Maybe it's cowardly, but he need to wait until the Prompter is done before he can have this conversation. If anyone could spin his sob story into something compelling and worthy of Ford, it's this future Perfect Dirk. 

Ford leans into Dirk's hands, and looks down at the ground. After a long, quiet moment, he says, "I suppose I was conflating some junk."

"I want to be here," says Dirk, "because I want to be with you. Because—you matter to me." He presses an insistent kiss to Ford's forehead, and then steps back again. "Is that cool? I wear headphones, mostly, so I can be quiet as a mouse, no worries there. The tourists will think I'm the Phantom of the Gift Shop, that'll be great for business, right?"

"Yes," he says, smiling. His smile is all Dirk has wanted, this entire time. "Yes, I want you to move in with me."

So that's that. Dirk packs up his dirty laundry, and makes a list in his phone of the things he'd like to bring back with him. He doesn't mind keeping most of it in his sylladex, and only popping it out when he wants to use it. He doesn't have his own designated space in the Shack; there isn't enough room, at least while the kids are staying there and the store is open.

He ducks back down into the lab to kiss Ford goodbye, before bringing his suitcase through the entryway. Mabel and Dipper are watching TV, and Dirk stops to see what's playing.

"Next, on  _ Ducktective!" _ A cheesy announcer's voice was saying. The camera showed a white duck in a deerstalker and poncho, quacking irritably at a bumbling constable. The subtitles for the quacking read,  _ He fed the carbuncle to the goose, no doubt. _

"But Ducktective," says the constable. "Do we lock him up for theft of the carbuncle... or murder of the goose?"

Text splashes across the screen:  _ Tonight: Murder Most Fowl! _

"What," says Dirk.

Mabel waves to Dirk without looking away from the TV. "Hi, Dirk! It's the Summertime Christmas Special! Wanna watch?"

Dirk checks his phone for the time. He's still on schedule. "I've got plans. Sorry, Mabel. I'm—also not caught up."

"It's the Summertime Christmas Special," says Dipper, also looking at the TV. "It's normally a standalone ep with characters we don't see or think about ever again."

This is a pretty kind offer from Dipper, and Dirk wants to vocalize "thanks, but no thanks" in a way that isn't bourgeois. He settles on, "Catch it on the re-run for sure," and grabs the handle of his suitcase. "I'm heading home for a few hours. See you guys tonight."

"Have fun!" Says Mabel, kicking her feet happily. "Look both ways!"

Dirk makes a noise of vague assent, closes the front door behind him, and travels home.The odd energy of Gravity Falls passes over him like a wave of oil, and then dissipates.

When the colors stop blurring, he's standing in his own entryway. It's a very open-plan house, so this area blends seamlessly with the living room, which is outlined by a huge blue sectional and a rug. The kitchen island floats to the side, and the huge, chrome fridge is peppered with a mishmash of different magnetic poetry sets. Right now, Shakespeare and Sweet Bro are arranged in a dirty limerick, courtesy of the last time Rose was there. Not much has changed, in the weeks he's been gone.

He takes a moment to just be, arriving more than just physically, and looks around. The energy of his dimension feels different, somehow, like he'd just left a lot of hair-raising static behind. Ford talks about Weirdness enough for Dirk to know what he's feeling: the foundation of his world is different than Ford's. The rules are warped. Different Frog, different core components.

He heads to his section of the apartment, which is mid-century modern by accident, since he has fancy doodads but below-basic furniture. Cinderblocks prop up his "desk" and his "work table," and most of the far wall is his music setup. It looks like a bachelor pad to him, now, after spending time in a wood-paneled family home. It's too white and Spartan, even with the posters.

The plants along the windowsill are not dead, but they aren't full of life, either. He waters them and thinks about their future, before popping them in a new row in his sylladex. They're mostly succulents, and will survive without direct sunlight until he finds a place for them. It's not like they'll activate anyone's allergies at the Shack.

He putters around, picking up clothes and sorting them into piles of Take and Leave, until he hears the front door open. Only one of the four of them ever bothers to use the front door.

When Dirk makes it back to the kitchen space, Jane is putting a canvas bag of groceries down on the kitchen island. He reaches in without asking, and pulls out a huge box of butter. "What are you planning on making, a sculpture?"

"Dirk!" She embraces him, giving his ribs a squeeze. He puts the butter down, and pats her on the head. "I didn't know I'd get to see you, today!"

"Plan changed," he says, awkwardly hugging her back. "I'm packing up some stuff. I'm gonna—you know. What we talked about yesterday, about the Shack being a world of suck?"

She pats his back, and pulls away, looking up at him with a content grin. "I do. I like to remember being right."

"It's not the Shack's fault," he says, and pulls out a succulent from his sylladex. It's a jade plant, and a gift from Jade herself. She has a million of the little guys, but Dirk still treasures this one. "I thought I could bring some of me into it. Not as a headliner, just a featured artist."

Jane tilts her head to the side, and adjusts her glasses. Dirk can see her work out what he means, and go over what he's already gone over. He hopes it's a sane solution. Ford had been excited, he reminded himself; he isn't alone in thinking this is a good idea.

"That's good," she finally says, nodding to him. "I like that. You don't want to feel like a guest over there, do you?"

His shoulders relax, and he nods, turning the small terracotta pot in a circle in his hands. "Nah, not really. And I'll still spend a lot of time here. Don't think you can get rid of me that easily."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she says, and pushes the canvas shopping bag toward him. "Help me put this stuff away. Roxy's due any minute."

"What's she up to?"

Apparently, Roxy is actually out ruling her kingdom. Dirk doesn't know why; she could hardly ask for more qualified partners-in-monarchy than Calliope, Rose, and Kanaya. He supposes that Carapacians require more hands-on ruling than Consorts, and counts his lucky stars.

They put away the groceries only to take some of them back out again. Jane preheats the oven, and gets going on a dark chocolate and cherry concoction that should be outlawed for being too delicious. By the time Roxy returns home, wearing her Godtier pajamas and a tired smile, the place smells amazing.

"DiStri!" She bounds over to the kitchen space, jumping onto his back. He has to hold onto her legs while he's got potholders on, making the surprise piggyback even more ridiculous than usual. "What in the whole fuck are you doing here?"

Dirk looks down at the double-boiler he's been melting chocolate into. "Packing," he says.

Roxy looks down at the stove as well. "If this is you packing, you're really bad at it."

"Both of you skedaddle," says Jane, all business in her frilly apron. "This cake is at a critical stage, and I don't need you guys goofing around in here."

Dirk hoists Roxy higher, and she giggles, knees tightening against his sides. He says, "Wanna teach me how to pack?"

She points to Dirk's room. "Onward! To victory!"

Roxy helps him rearrange the rhyme scheme in his sylladex so he can comfortably fit his things inside with room to spare. He has all of his warm clothes in one row, including a few sweaters on loan from Roxy and Jane. He would have gone into Jake's room to steal a few, but Jake has never met a sweater he hasn't immediately lost. It's a miracle Jake owns anything at all.

"Okay," says Roxy, holding up a pair of slightly too small jean shorts. "You're going to Oregon, not Coachella."

"I'm also," Dirk says, taking them from her, "dating a sexy older man who owns cowboy boots. I saw them in his closet."

Roxy raises her eyebrows, but holds up her hands in surrender. "I feel you, I feel you. If you wanna Daisy his Dukes, that's your business. Pneumonia is sexy, maybe!"

"I'll make it work," he says, and rhymes it along with his other clothes.

When it comes to his music collection, they hit a snag.

"Most of these are on your laptop already," Roxy reasons, sitting cross-legged on his bed. His mattress is out of line with his box spring, making the whole thing look like a messy nest. It didn't bother him before, but now he misses having a frame.

"Yeah, as mp3s. These are vinyl," he says, holding record sleeves in either hand. Daft Punk's  _ Random Access Memories _ is in his left, and  _ Enter the Wu-Tang Clan _ in his right. He might as well be holding his children. "The sound is different, the sleeves are  _ art, _ the whole feel is hot and retro."

"Are we talking about the records, or about Stanford?"

"Ford is hot and retro and probably loves listening to records," says Dirk, packing them away. "I'll just—take a few sweaters out."

The first ten selections don't rustle anything around, but by the time he gets to his Sufjan Stevens stuff, there's a flurry of expelled wool and cashmere.

Roxy pulls a scarf from off of her face, and raises an eyebrow at him. "You're going to die," she says. "And it's going to be super embarrassing, because you'll come back and know that  _ this _ is how you died."

"Relatable," says Dirk, looking sadly down at  _ Elephant  _ by the White Stripes. "You always have the most relatable content, RoLal."

She snorts, and tosses his scarf over her shoulder. "Oh, I know. You should listen to me all the time, I'm basically always right. Speaking of which--have you taken my advice, yet? Or are you still making Ford wait for you to infodump on him?"   
  
Dirk flicks through a milk crate full of record sleeves, and keeps his eyes down. "He's a patient guy. He can wait a little longer for me to take a dump."

He can hear Roxy hold in a sigh. Then, she abandons the idea, and releases a sigh so loud he can feel it muss his hair from five feet away. "Why? What are you imagining is a dealbreaker, here? That you're a weirdo who takes infinite showers and never sleeps? I'm pretty sure he's figured that out by now."

"He has," he agrees, glaring down at Carly Rae Jepsen's B-side. "That's not it."

She crosses her legs, and then her arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her bob her foot, clearing waiting on him. He sighs, sits back, and looks at her. She's his best friend, but sometimes she's too much like him for it to be healthy.

"Look. Just... imagine you're Tad Strange," he starts.

Roxy closes her eyes, and nods. "I'm likin' this so far."

His lips twitch, and he continues. "You're a normal guy, who lives in a weird town. You've lived through some strange stuff, and you've got your share of stories. You've got a pretty good grip on the way the universe works. Then, you meet this babe named Jane."

"Hubba hubba," says Roxy, cracking open one eye. "Talk slower, let me enjoy this. What's she wearing?"

"Unimportant," Dirk says. Roxy pouts. "But what _is_ important is that she is a whole different category of strange. You like her, but some of the things she's done... she's not proud of them, but she can't take them back. Even if she could, she wouldn't, because it was those specific choices that led to her eventual victory over assholes. Jane really likes you, too, but knowing that she's capable of doing so many fucked up things, that she made her friends suffer—"

Roxy's eyes are open, now. "But he's not Tad Strange, Dirk. He's Ford 'multiverse explorer' Pines."

"Which makes it worse," he replies, running a hand through his hair, "because he's a hero. And he thinks I'm a hero, too. And I'm not even Jane, I'm a crazy, depressed ninja from the future who raised himself on Fanta and mindgames."

She frowns at him, fingers drumming on her bicep. "I'm guessing it's pointless to mention that you are, by pretty much every definition, a hero? You beat the Game, Dirky. We all did, together."

He shakes his head, and goes back to his records. "I was just along for the ride. The things I did before we ever entered the Medium... I'm not huge on the idea of Ford knowing about Brobot, for example. Or anything else I tried and failed to do."

Roxy frowns, black lips pursed. "Do you think you're the only one who was goin' around making bad choices when you were sixteen years old?"

"No." He does, sometimes, in his weaker, more sleep-deprived moments. His mind plays tricks on him, and knowing that they're tricks doesn't always stop them from working. "No, I know. But he doesn't have the context you have. You're the most forgiving audience I could hope for, because you lived my fucked up experiences with me. If he could just know everything without me having to say it, that would be ideal."

She tucks her hair behind her ear. Her frown takes on a distant quality, making everything that much worse. When Roxy is less than happy, it comes off of her in waves, and Dirk has never been able to handle it particularly well. "That's the ideal scenario?"

"I don't... I don't know how to tell him what I've done, and hope that he'll still like me, after." Especially when he doesn't even like himself, knowing all those same things.

The last thought goes unsaid, but not unheard. Roxy stands from her seat, and moves over to Dirk. She's still frowning, but doesn't hesitate to bring an arm around his shoulders. He straightens up, and rubs a hand over his face.

"I'll talk with him," he promises. "Soon."

She sighs, again. "Okay."

"You think I'm being stupid," he says.

"Yeah."

"I don't think that I am."

She rubs her hand in a small circle between his shoulder blades, and nods to herself. "I know you don't. I just worry about you, sometimes. You give me lots to worry about."

He nods, too. After a moment's silence, she leans down to help him with the vinyl.

Eventually, they surface from Dirk's mess of a living space, and Jane has two layers of cake on cooling racks. They all collapse onto the couch, and turn on the TV, checking Netflix and then Hulu. Jane puts on  _ The Good Place,  _ and for the next hour, everyone bounces between watching the show and checking their phones.

It occurs to Dirk that this isn't something he can take with him. The Shack doesn't even have internet; Dirk's put his wireless router in his suitcase, but he doesn't know if Ford wants his house to be on any sort of grid. Dirk probably wouldn't, in Ford's shoes. But this—this low-energy, passive enjoyment of his friend's company—this isn't something he gets, at the Mystery Shack. At most, he, Ford, and Stan all read at the same time, or watch a rerun together. This feels more deliberate, somehow. More unifying.

"If I bought a smart TV," he says out loud, "do you think I could convince the Pines to get rid of their CRT?"

Jane and Roxy look at each other, and shrug. Jane says, "Do they care about energy efficiency? Those old TVs were just awful for the environment."

Dirk's mind's eye focuses on the Stanmobile. "I'm gonna go with no."

"Maybe start small," says Roxy, wiggling her phone. "Tablet, phone, something. Then break out the big guns. Maybe the hunky twins are secretly pro gamers! You just gotta unlock their potential."

"I've been thinking about that, too, actually," Dirk says. "It's come to my attention that neither Ford nor Stan own phones, other than their shared landline. That doesn't stop Ford from wanting to know where I am—he had kind of a mini-freakout the other day."

Jane blinks, looking away from the TV screen in surprise. "He did? Why?"

Dirk locks his phone screen, and drops it on the coffee table. "I said we'd be at the diner, remember. We weren't, and he got a little wigged. Apparently he called the place, and when we weren't there in the time window he'd randomly decided was appropriate, he assumed the worst. I don't blame him—you know how Gravity Falls can be."

Jane bites her lip, and looks over at Roxy. She is playing with a pink strap on her phone, and frowning. Roxy says, "Jeez, dude. Isn't that kind of... not great behavior? You can go out with your friends, why's that a big deal?"

Dirk shakes his head, and tries to see what his friends are seeing. "I'm not explaining this well. He was scared for my safety. The only reason he didn't give himself a frighten after my shitty sloth stunt was because he reads relationship books, and they say that arguments happen, and sometimes the other party needs space." He can feel his expression soften into something wistful and sappy, and he doesn't even care. "That time, I avoided him for what he reckons to be a statistically probable duration. He's adorable."

When Dirk looks at his friends, he learns that this is not something considered adorable by others. But what else could it be? The obvious care in Ford's face, the amount he'd worried, the laserlike focus solely on Dirk when he'd returned. Maybe this is something that can't be explained, but Dirk isn't seeing the red flag that Jane and Roxy apparently are.

"All I can say for sure," says Jane, patting Dirk on the shoulder, "is that he makes you happy. Right?"

He's surprised by the question. "Of course. Yeah. I mean, moving in was my idea, not his. He's—I'm happy, with him. Why?"

Jane ignores the question, and asks, "And he's never mean, to you? He never forces you to stick around, when you'd rather be somewhere else?"

_ "No," _ he says, a flash of annoyance darkening his face. "It's good, with Ford. Why is this a Doctor Phil episode, all of the sudden?"

"I like Ford," says Roxy. "He's a tank. But if he's being weird and controlling, I hate him."

Dirk boggles at them, eyes wide behind his shades. Being in a world where people are warning _him_ about weird and controlling boyfriends—that's not something he ever expected to happen. Even when he had other, more lethal things to worry about, he never imagined that his own transgressions would be forgotten. Maybe they haven't been, and his friends are genuinely concerned that the tables have turned in the ultimate ironic reacharound. He laughs, and it comes out scratchy and awkward, the way that it always does.

"You don't get it," he says. "Ford is, objectively, a nutjob. He's... sometimes he meditates instead of sleeping, like a fucking  _ Dungeons and Dragons _ elf. He plans out impossible science experiments to do with his nephew, even when it takes him days. He writes journals the way other people breathe, both hands working on different sentences, and that—I've never seen that, that should be impossible, or a sign of insanity. And in the words of Rihanna, poet laureate of the United States, he makes me feel like I'm the only girl in the world." He looks between Jane and Roxy, willing them to understand. "He's weird, and possessive, and I feel the same way. Shit, I  _ am  _ the same way. It's the  _ best." _

Jane and Roxy go through a whole face journey, from concerned about him to baffled at his logic to, finally, awkward and happy. He understands awkward, but the happy part takes him a second to recognize. His own happiness is still new and fragile inside of him, but he has stopped actively looking for things to make him sad. Ford wants him to move in. He, himself, wants to move in. And once the Prompter is done—and it will be, in only a matter of days—everything in his whole damn life is going to fall into place. Nothing is going to spoil that, short of another apocalypse.

"Well," says Jane, shrugging her shoulders and smiling, "we already knew you were weird. The rest isn't exactly a stretch, just... unexpected."

"I didn't expect it, either," he says, baldly honest. "But here we are."

Roxy stares at him, eyes wide, before bursting out laughing and punching him in the arm. "Shit, dude.  _ Shit.  _ I'd embroider those syrupy compliments on a pillow if I could get the font small enough. You're in total lesbians with this guy!"

Roxy does not pull her punches, verbally or physically. He rubs his arm, clearly envisioning the bruise he's going to get, and says, "At the very least, I'm not  _ not  _ in lesbians with him."

"Ha!" She punches him again, but he dodges, this time. Soon, pillows are flying, and they're indulging in a good, old-fashioned bedclothes tussle. Jane and Dirk are both at a disadvantage, as they have glasses they need to protect, and Roxy has a proclivity for headshots. Dirk is fast, but Jane is wiley, and will Three Stooges trip them up without batting an eyelash. They're all buff: Jane is pure arm muscle from kneading bread into submission, Dirk's legs are dope from flashstepping, and Roxy has the core strength of an Olympic-gold-winning gymnast. This is not an easy skirmish for any of them.

The battle is hard-fought, and ends with feathers floating down on their sweaty, supine bodies. "I need a shower," Dirk tells the ceiling fan, "and I need to pack up my bath stuff. It's nearly six."

"Gotta keep to your weird gay schedule," agrees Roxy. "That's the language of love, for you nerds."

Dirk cannot disagree. Instead he simply gets up, expels a pile of sweaters from his sylladex onto Roxy, and leaves the room. From under a pile of warm clothing, she yells, "Curse you, Strider! Curse you and this cozy prison for a thousand years!"

He closes the bathroom door, and laughs so hard it hurts.

-

It's nearly dusk, when he swirls through the Universes and arrives back on the Shack's front step. Before he has a chance to knock on the door, it opens, and there's Ford. The day has felt long, for Dirk, so it's almost strange to see Ford wearing the same thing he was that morning.

"Welcome home, Dirk." Ford holds the door open to him, smiling broadly. "I thought you might have bags, or boxes."

Dirk blinks, and then realizes that he forgot to explain something important. "Oh, uh. No. I've —pocket dimension."

Thankfully, that's enough for Ford. He steps back in the entryway, and Dirk steps inside, rubbing his arms from the brief chill. Most of the lights in the house are out; Dirk interprets that to mean Stan and the kids are out, and Ford has been down in the basement.

Ford briefly scans the outside, and then closes the door. He only pulls one lock, but Dirk knows better than to think that's all that's protecting this place. When he turns back to face Dirk in the low light of the entryway, he's positively relaxed, shoulders lowered and smile broad. "You're just in time for my scheduled surprise."   
  
_ Six o'clock: give Ford a surprise. _ Dirk wrote it before he'd really decided to go through with his idea, but his friends were instrumental in convincing him it was okay. He's not being pushy, he's being... well, not normal, either. But he's being okay. Acceptable, even.

Dirk says, "Yeah. I didn't get the chance to wrap 'em, but..."

The surprise is split between two boxes.

One contains a router of Roxy's design . No one in your house likes being on the grid, even when you created the people who created the grid. It looks simple enough, with a grey case and green lights.

The other box is a gift from one of Jake's business connections. He gets stuff all the time: a free trip, an expensive gift card, a coupon for a massage. The currency of Hollywood is at least one removed from currency, as if paper money is too obvious for a bribe. Jake never checks his mail, and is on record as not caring, so—here, for Ford, is a top of the line cell phone.

"I thought we could hook this up together," says Dirk. "And you can save my number as a contact, and my email, and my chumhandle. By the end of this, you'll be sick of me."

The kiss is sudden and brief, stealing the breath from Dirk's lungs. Ford pauses before leaning back, and leaves his hands on Dirk's sides. The cold evening feels miles away.

"Sick of you?" Says Ford. "Doubtful. Let's get these set up."

Dirk says nothing, because the only thing he wants to say is too much.


	9. Party Like It's 1999

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience, as well as the kind comments and kudos. Happy New Year!

\-- scribeSixfold [SS] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 10:34 -- 

SS: Like this?

TT: Hey.

TT: Yeah, you've got it.

SS: The keyboard on this phone is absurdly small.

SS: I took typing as an elective in high school. They didn't teach us to do it with just our thumbs.

TT: Ooh, tell me all about it.

TT: Complain about change and the youth of today. I'm begging you.

SS: I think you're implying I'm old.

TT: Did you walk to school uphill both ways?

SS: I'm not going to dignify that with a response.

TT: Did you go to high school before or after calculus was invented? Before, right? You sure missed out, that stuff is awesome.

\-- scribeSixfold [SS] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 10:36 --

timaeusTestified [TT] RIGHT NOW opened memo on board Be nice. 

TT: I figured this would be the best way to get everyone to exchange chumhandles.

TT: Take note of the title of the memo.

TT: This is not the right time to act like gibbering lunatics.

TG: FORSD!!!!

TG: cmere baby!!!!!

TT: Yeah. None of that.

SS: Hello? Is that my name?

TG: yes omg this is roxy! :)

TG: u can save my chumhandle and then we can have secret onversations!!!!

TG: lets talk about boys.... or maybe just one specific boy... winkwink

SS: Why do you type like that?

SS: If you are incapable of touch typing, surely looking down at the keyboard is better than guessing. And guessing poorly, at that.

TG: lmao its an affectation

TG: because im so charmin and whismical.

GG: Goodness me is that Ford Pines?

GG: Hello there! I didn't expect to meet you this way.

GG: I'm Jane!

Ford and Dirk are down in the lab, after a lean breakfast of healthy cereal and too much coffee. The monitors are full of progress bars, showing percentages in the low tens. To pass the time, Dirk suggested getting Ford’s internet presence just right, and Ford, equal parts intrigued and befuddled, agreed to give it a whirl.

Now, they’re sitting next to each other in the sort of rolly office chairs that Dirk can’t help but spin around in. Dirk looks up from his own phone screen to check on Ford, who is frowning in concentration. The light from the monitors plus the light from his phone screen have his face looking a little washed out, but washed-out handsome is still handsome.

Jane starts to send a flurry of polite messages to the group chat, and the line between Ford's brows deepens. Dirk stops spinning his chair, pulling the breaks by planting a foot against a table leg. “What’s up, babe?”

Ford looks up, hesitant. It's an unusual expression on him; Dirk can't remember Ford being less than one hundred percent certain any time in the last few weeks. Before Dirk can work up a full panic, Ford says, "Is it always going to beep at me this much?"

The brief lurch of tension in Dirk's stomach settles, and he holds out a hand for Ford's phone. "I'll turn off notifications for you." Ford gives it to Dirk, and Dirk types in the most recent password, a random collection of symbols that is set to change once a day. "Maybe just for this memo, though. I don't see you checking your phone for kicks as much as I'd like."

Now unanchored, Ford rolls his chair back to one of the monitors, clearly more comfortable with the desktop screen than the phone one. "It's... a lot of information to process. Is it like this all the time?"

"In group chats?" Dirk's thumbs move expertly through the Pesterchum settings, pulling out all the stops to make a naturally annoying program slightly less so. "At first, yeah. Once they calm down, and message you individually, this memo will go full ghost town."

"According to the list of invited people, I haven't met everyone yet." Ford types in a few extra commands. "Who is... golgothasTerror?"

_ A man of mystery, _ thinks Dirk, but only because that's how Jake prefers to be introduced to people. It's one of the many ways in which he's a huge nerd, and Dirk has to smile about it. "That's Jake. He's my other best friend. The last of the four of our specific pantheon, but..." He pauses, himself, and puts Ford's phone on the worktable. How to describe the trolls? Or Calliope? "It's complicated. There are more people for you to meet after this, if you want."

Ford looks up, then, a smile in his eyes but not quite on his lips. "Like your brother?"

It takes a moment for that to land. Dirk blinks, and takes a moment to place who that might be. "Yeah, I guess. Roxy told you about him?"

"She mentioned one, yes." Ford was facing the monitor again. It was weird, since there was very little they could actually do, at this stage—until the file transfer was complete, they couldn't exactly check that it had been successful. Dirk stares at him. Ford doesn't look up. "Sarcastic, with an ironic twist to his humor. A younger brother, but not quite."

Dirk scoots over in his chair, and rests his feet on Ford's lap. "We're the same age, sort of," he says. He almost says,  _ Why does this bother you,  _ but then Ford shrugs and answers the unasked question.

Ford doesn't hunch over, or visibly brace himself, but Dirk knows his body. His muscles twitch along the shoulders, like he's reminding himself not to be obvious. "She acted as though you could be twins."

Family is complicated. Dirk knows that better than he used to, and he used to study human civilization with the devotion of the demented. He tries to see what Ford is seeing, and comes up with an uncanny valley Stanley/Dirk fusion. That would be unsettling, but no reason for the weird vibes in the air. "I wouldn't go that far," says Dirk, and pulls out his own phone again.

\-- timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 11:13 --

TT: Hey.

TG: hey

TT: Wanna meet my boyfriend?

TG: damn

TG: meeting the parents huh

TG: introducing your prom date to big bad dad

TG: where have the years gone

TG: i remember when you were the size of a football and now someones trying to score on you

TG: taking you to the endzone which is also your endzone

TG: there are lots of zones involved is what im saying

TT: Would you like more accurate details about my sex life? That would make the extended metaphors easier.

TG: christ no

TT: Are you sure?

TG: death first

TT: Fine. I'll save them in a doc anyway. Let me know when you want the link.

TT: So?

TG: so

TG: heres the sitch kim possible

TG: im for sure down to meet him but im sort of doing something else today

TG: possibly also tomorrow

TG: gimme his chumhandle and ill shoot him a line

TT: Everything okay?

TG: yeah just

TG: troll shit

TG: not sure how to explain it

TG: karkats been in a mood and kanaya explained it to me but fuck if i understand anything at all ever about 

TG: stuff

TG: things

TG: anyway yeah

TT: He's scribeSixfold. Whenever you get the chance.

TT: Best of luck with the troll shit.

TG: thanks

TG: talk later

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT] at 11:19 --

During the lapse in conversation, Ford's shoulders relaxed more naturally. Dirk fiddles with his phone case, and then puts it on the table next to Ford's. The incessant beeping has stopped, and with it has come the normal peace Dirk finds in the mad science basement.

"We could get P-chum on your computer," Dirk volunteers, solving one problem instead of asking the more important question. "If you really don't like using the tiny keyboard."   
  
"Hmm?" Ford continues typing. "Yes."

Dirk bites down a smile. "And I could order you a mouse. They aren't just gimmicks, anymore. Didn't the first one come out in the sixties? How do you not have any?"   
  
"Mm-hmm," hums Ford.   
  
Dirk pulls his feet off of Ford's lap, and actually looks at the monitor. Ford is deep in a different project, clearly unable, or at least unwilling, to take a break. Charmed, Dirk leans forward and blows into Ford's ear.

Ford's yelp of surprise cracks in the middle, and his shoulders jump. He looks at Dirk, bewildered. "What was that for?"   
  
"I'm going to get snacks," says Dirk, in lieu of an answer. "You want anything?"

Dirk takes his time heading up to the kitchen. There are several access points to the house above, but usually he favors taking the elevator and flying up the staircase. Thinking about the sudden awkwardness before, Dirk defaults to staring at the elevator buttons as he ascends.

If Ford truly doesn't like the idea of Dirk having a twin-ish person, Dirk is going to have to have a conversation with him in the sitting area. It'll be when Stan is watching TV, so Dirk can point at him whenever Ford acts like having a brother is some huge, weird deal. That can't be what's going on, Dirk decides. It's too stupid.

Still considering the possibilities, Dirk pops out into the store, and wanders to the kitchen. Mabel is standing on a chair, looting one of the upper cupboards for chips. Knowing that she didn't hear him come in, he knocks  _ Shave and a Haircut _ on the doorframe.

She turns to face him, beaming. There are at least three kinds of junk food under her arm, and she's still reaching into the cupboard for more. "Dirk! Did you hear? It's Karaoke Night!"

Dirk stays well back, almost outside of the kitchen, due to his own horrible awkwardness. "Oh yeah?"

Mabel hops down from the chair, and beelines to him. If she can sense his feelings, she's doing absolutely nothing about them. That is, he readily admits, the best way to go about it. "The girls and I decided that what we really need is to belt it out. It'll be here at the Shack! You have to come!"

"Oh." Dirk considers this. It's the first invitation to a party he's ever received from a thirteen year old girl, and he's not certain about the etiquette. "I mean. Sure. Of course, Mabel."

"Yes!" She squeezes her snacks in an excited hug, and one of the bags explodes. "Call everyone you know! This is going to be the event of the summer! I'll go tell Dipper!"

She scampers away, leaving a nacho-blasted trail in her wake. Dirk grabs some sodas and a bag of pretzels, then returns to the lab.

Ford is in front of the stationary magnifying lens again, disassembling or reassembling the chest node, it's not obvious which. His phone has let off beeping; doubtless he has a bunch of unseen messages, and Dirk's friends have gotten the message that he's AFK.

Dirk takes his seat by the secondary monitor, and checks over the progress bars. They are still progressing, and they are still bars. "There's a party tonight," he says.

Ford, mindful of the earlier teasing, actually responds. He looks up for half a second, registers the pretzels, and then returns to his work. "I see."

"You don't sound surprised."

"We are currently sharing a house with Mabel. Realistically, it was only a matter of time."

The word "currently" sticks out in Dirk's mind, and he adds it to the pile of things he has no idea how to talk about. He asks instead, "Are you planning on going? She said it'd be here, so I'd say you have no choice, but you've got a billion hiding places, I assume. This room included."

"I see no reason to make an appearance." Ford picks up a near-microscopic screw with his tweezers, and reinserts it into the node's casing.

Dirk puts the bag of pretzels on the ground, along with the unopened sodas. "I mean, I'm going." He stands again, and begins carefully rearranging the papers on the worktable. The blueprints all go in one stack, while Ford's hand-drawn dialogue trees go in another. "I thought it'd be fun."

"I don't see how," says Ford to the magnifying lens. 

At least Ford is using words, instead of subvocal "I'm not listening" noises. Dirk picks up one of the monitors, mindful of the wires, and finishes clearing a space. "I'm inviting Jane. You can meet her in person. And hey, maybe Jake'll get the messages in time. He should be coming back soon."

Ford sighs, and rubs his eyes with one hand. "You haven't been to one of Mabel's parties, Dirk. All that will happen is the proactive destruction of eardrums. What's wrong with what we're doing?"

Dirk can feel the cool metal of the work table through his jeans. "Ford."

"Of course, I'm interested in meeting your friends," he continues, squinting as he works. "It's an important part of a relationship's development. Are you familiar with the work of Dr. Liebhaber? She's a professor of psychology at Harvard, and has published a number of papers on this very subject."

"Ford."

"I had to fudge the numbers, given the difference in our linear timelines, but according to Dr. Leibhaber, we are within the correct phase to be introducing each other to our social circles." The weird tension is back, and Dirk can almost see it resting against Ford, weighing him down. It's like he's wearing an invisible backpack, and it's filling up with bricks as he talks. "I need a few more weeks to prepare. There will be other parties. Your brother is probably busy—is he a god, too?"

"Ford, look at me."

"The Social Biome Theory postulates—" Ford looks at Dirk. Thankfully, this shuts him up.

Dirk is lying on his side on the work table. He's bent one knee, and he's propping up his head with one hand.  _ The Graduate _ came out in the sixties, same as computer mice, so Dirk has no idea if Ford gets the reference or not. Either way, Ford looks like he's being seduced.  Not as much as he looks like he's about to crack up, though.

Dirk sighs, betrayed, and tosses his head. If he had longer hair, it might look cool, when he does that. Instead, he knows he looks like a mad pony. "Unbelievable. Here I am, being totally hot, and you're laughing."

"I'm not laughing," says Ford, voice wavering on the edge of it. "I'm—surprised. You surprised me."

"With how hot I am," prompts Dirk.

Ford hides a snort in a cough. "If you say so."

"I do. I also say," he continues, holding the pose, "that you're acting weird. Different weird. I'm just inviting Roxy, Jane, and Jake. You've already met Roxy, and she rightfully thinks you're great. You've already met Jane, just not in meatspace, and I know you'll think she's great. And Jake probably won't come, because he can't find his own ass with two hands and a map."

Ford leans back in his chair, and releases a sigh. "Is that right?"   
  
"My brother-type-person is busy with his alien boyfriend," finishes Dirk. "So what is even the big deal, Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Doctor Pines?"

Laughing, Ford stands, and moves to lean over Dirk. Dirk stands his ground, so to speak, levelling that same unimpressed look at Ford. "That's not how multiple doctorates work," he says, smiling.

"Tell me about it at the party," says Dirk.

Ford leans down further, and Dirk cranes his neck up to meet him. It's not a passionate kiss, because the angle is awkward and Dirk's elbow hurts from being seductive on such a hard surface. Instead, it's comforting. It's sweet, and gentle, and when Dirk moves his hand to Ford's shoulder, he can feel how much more relaxed he is, now. It makes him warm down to his toes, knowing that he can do this for Ford.

"Okay," says Ford, breath making Dirk's lips tingle. "I'll go."

"Hooray." Dirk picks up his phone, and lies down completely, facing the ceiling as he types. It feels nice on his back, after all the weird things he's done with his posture over the years. Ford laughs again, and leaves him to it.

timaeusTestified [TT] RIGHT NOW opened memo on board Be nice. 

TT: Party at the Shack tonight.

TT: Be there or be some bullshit babyshape.

TG: sweet!! what kinda party we talkin

TT: Karaoke? That's what Mabel said.

TT: She was busy with grand theft chips so I didn't get much in the way of details.

GG: It's very sweet of her to invite us.

GG: Is it really okay for us to go?

GG: Ford?

TT: He's busy.

TT: We're sort of in the middle of something.

TG: lol

TT: No.

TG: ;)

TT: Anyway, yes, Mabel is very sweet.

TT: Come over whenever. It'll be fine.

GG: What a reassuring thing to hear!

GG: We'll stop by after dinner.

TT: Let's call it six thirty. I've got a schedule to make.

TG: haha aw

TG: weirdo

-

The two of them arrive on the Shack's front porch exactly on time. Roxy is dressed in her ironic housewife blouse, again, and Jane is texting someone with her cake held in one hand. Dirk moves from the window to the door, but Ford has beaten him there.

He opens the door to them, and smiles. "Hello, you two. You're here in plenty of time for the party."

"Hiya!" Roxy steps in, and gives Dirk a hug. She lays her head on his chest, turned to face Ford and continue speaking. "Here's a secret:  _ I'm  _ the party. Everyone else is just gravy."

"Well, then," says Ford, stepping back from the door and gesturing Jane to enter as well. "I'm glad the party has arrived. You must be Ms. Gumshoe."

She laughs, and puts her phone away to shake his hand. "Jane Crocker. It's great to finally meet you face-to-face."

"I feel just the same way. I've been curious about Dirk's friends, and I'm more than happy to act as host to a trio of gods."

"As kind as you are built," says Dirk, linking arms with Roxy.

She looks around, and Dirk notices what she's in the process of noticing. She asks, "Where're the kids?"

Ford is in charge of closing the door behind their guests, the better to check that they weren't followed before closing it. It's one of the many little habits of Ford's that Dirk both respects as sensible, and thinks is pretty cute. "Still exploring," he says. "Dipper got a lead on our project, and went to hunt down potential hiding spots for the so-called 'treasure.'"

Dirk smiles at Ford, giving him encouragement that he doesn't seem to need. For all the weirdness earlier, he looks natural, almost confident, inviting people into his home. Dirk puts it down to the heads-up; he figures that surprises are for people who haven't been hunted by a polygon for thirty years.

Stan is wearing his mystery suit, but without the girdle. His bow tie is loose at his neck, and when Dirk enters the TV room with Roxy, he sighs. "Six thirty on the dot, huh," he says.

"Promptness is the politeness of princes and their friends," says Dirk. "Hi."

"Hey, Mystery," says Roxy, unlinking arms and taking to the air to avoid the snack detritus in the room. "Is there soda? I want soda."

Jane and Ford are meeting in the hallway, and Dirk wants to hover in a different way, so he nods to the kitchen. She floats off his back and exits to the kitchen. Stan watches her go, and takes a long sip of Pitt.

Dirk asks, "Problem?"

"Seems convenient, that's all," he tells Dirk, slowly rising from his chair. "You'd save a fortune on ladders."

Dirk looks from the kitchen's entrance, back to Stan. "You know," he says lightly, crossing his arms, "I might have a warped perspective on this, but I have only just noticed that you're kind of weird, Stan."

Stan grunts, and tugs off his jacket. "Thanks. Now go bother Stanford for a while, I gotta change."

When Dirk reappears in the entryway, Ford is holding Jane's cake stand with both hands, visibly surprised that she brought it. Jane, who has more experience with people and hospitality than anyone else Dirk knows, is shrugging off Ford's thanks. "It's the least I could do, with you inviting everyone into your home! Thanks for having us."

Ford, who had not so much invited anyone as not told Mabel no, simply smiles. "It's my pleasure. It's not every day a man gets to meet the creators of a whole Universe! Exactly how many people does it take to successfully complete that project?"

"Minimum two," says Dirk, sliding an arm around Ford's waist. "We had four, in our original session."

Ford turns his smile over to Dirk, who promptly wants to push his face against it. "And remind me, when will I meet the last fourth?"

"Gosh," says Jane, and looks to Dirk. "He's been on location in Vietnam for about a month, now. He was expected back today, but who knows, with that fella?"

"On location?" Ford blinks, eyebrows raised. "You're saying he's filming something?"

"Jake's a movie guy," says Dirk, nudging Ford in the side. "He's an actor, and a producer, and pretty much whatever it takes to get his ass on the silver screen. Let's go put the cake down, sweets."

The kitchen ends up being the base of operations, for a while. The table is big enough to gather around, and when Stan finally returns in his painfully seventies party outfit, everyone (barring Ford) is available to voice their approval. Ford squints at Stan, as if searching for a word on the tip of his tongue.

Dirk nudges Ford's knee under the table with his own. "Did he steal that shirt from you? Please tell me yes. Please tell me you're mad that he stole your wide-spread collar disco shirt, Ford."

"What? No," he says, nudging Dirk back. "I'm just surprised he still fits in that getup. You'd call it 'vintage,' right?"

"I'd call it something," says Dirk. "Something you might not want me to say about your brother."

Ford pulls a spectacularly disgusted face, and Dirk gets soda up his nose.

Stan leaves again to set up the dance floor. Apparently, parties are something that happen often enough that there is a set schedule of events. Dirk shouldn't be surprised, he realizes: Mabel Pines is in town, and lives in a house that has its own karaoke machine. The party potential is through the roof.

"Mabel's sweet," Jane tells Ford. "Does she help with your experiments, too?"

"Yes and no," he says. "Dipper has always been more interested in my research. Of course, she knows she is invited along on our fieldwork, but she rarely joins us."

"Where did you say the kiddos were?" Roxy asks. She's leaning back in her chair, texting someone without looking down at her phone. "Building houses? Strifing?"

Ford takes a moment to process what Roxy's talking about. Dirk cuts in, "Being thirteen somewhere, she means. Our grasp on what the hell that entails is loose at best."

Roxy frowns. "Kids don't build houses anymore?"

Dirk shrugs. "It's not a skill set that's carried over, I guess. Gen Z traded in architecture for fidget spinners."

"Wild," mutters Roxy.

Jane, on Ford's other side, pats him on the shoulder. "I would apologize for my weird friends," she says, "but you are dating one of them. I imagine this happens a lot."

Ford brightens. "Not that often, now that you mention it. My extradimensional travels introduced me to a number of strange things. The ways in which Dirk is strange are..." He looks over to Dirk, and his smile softens. "They're not bad."

From two rooms away, Stan yells, "Not in the kitchen! We eat in there!"

"Aww," says Dirk, pink-faced. "Babe."

The conversation drifts around, bouncing from how business is at the Shack, to how Ford feels about being home again. Dirk has brought his chair so close to Ford's that he might as well be sitting in his lap, but his friends don't call him out on it. Given his behavior regarding Tad earlier this month, he especially owes Jane a huge solid for this.

Finally, as the sun sets and they forage for snacks in the cupboards, the topic turns to music.

"I brought some records," Dirk says, weirdly bashful, "in my sylladex. The pocket dimension I have."

"I remember," says Ford, smiling. "Any bands I would know?"

Childish Gambino is definitely out of the question, but Daft Punk has been around since the nineties. He doesn't know how deep into the music scene Ford is—any of the music scenes, really, or even if there are scenes that aren't almost entirely online. Dirk mentally flicks through his album library. "Pick a genre, and I'll see."

"Well," he starts. The arm around Dirk's shoulders moves to shrug, and Dirk wants to pull it back down again, like it's a scarf coming undone in bad weather. "We're having a party, so let's start with party music. What do you have that's disco?"

Roxy, who had been noisily opening a bag of cheesy poofs, freezes. When she turns back to them, her face is a rictus of glee.  _ "Fordlington. _ You're a disco boy?"

Ford blinks over at her, apparently baffled. "Why wouldn't I be? It's good stuff. The Eurythmics? They were only just blowing up before I went through the portal, but  _ In the Garden _ was criminally underrated. Do you have that one, Dirk?"

Dirk does not. He has never even heard of it. "Sorry," he says, pushing his shades up his nose. "I'm still reeling, a little. I'm not used to being blindsided like this."

"It's good music," Ford insists, defensive. "No one wanted to play bass guitar, before disco. It was a revolution. You can't tell me history has done it such a disservice that this is an embarrassing opinion to have!"

"I'm thinking about pants, Ford," says Dirk, eyes fixed on the middle distance. "Pants, and platform shoes."

Jane opens a can of Pitt, and takes a swig.  _ Me, too, sister, _ Dirk doesn't say. She says, "I can't speak for these wahoos, but I'm surprised to hear it. It's sort of—fun, isn't it? Disco music? And you're a pretty serious scientist. It's not a combination I would have guessed!"

"I'm not  _ dead," _ he says, hand on his heart. "I can enjoy exploring the mysteries of the universe as well as popular music. Are all the men of science you know total sticks in the mud?"

Jane looks at Dirk, and hums. "I wonder," she says.

"Well, now  _ I'm _ dead," says Dirk. "Jane just burned me alive."

Like the punchline of a bad joke, there is suddenly awful screaming outside. It takes Dirk a half-second to stand and bring his sword out of his sylladex, which is long enough to process the voice as Mabel's. His response is immediate and certain—he flashsteps to the window above the sink, and yanks it open, preparing to dive out onto the grass.

Eyebats aren't supposed to come out, while the sun is still up. Gravity Falls doesn't have rules that make sense, but it does stick to those same rules. It's unsettling to see them screaming and bouncing blindly against the boughs of trees at dusk. It's worse to see them tangled in Mabel's long hair, both she and them thwacking each other with hand and wing respectively.

"Ouch!" She screams, stumbling toward the Shack. "That hurts! And sticky in ways I don't like!"

Dirk jumps out the window, and Ford leans out behind him. "Stop struggling, Mabel! They're just as startled as you are. No one likes getting hair in their eye!"

"Mabel," says Dirk, hand firm on his sword. "You'd—you'd look adorable with a pixie cut."

"OF COURSE I WOULD," she screams, grabbing an eyebat in both hands and tugging. It makes a deeply unpleasant gooshing noise, and a bit of her hair falls out. "Get these things  _ out!" _

A barely-pubescent voice from the forest yells, "Wait!"

Dipper runs out of the forest, notes clutched in both hands. He drops a few sheets as he fumbles through them, muttering furiously at himself. "Not this, not these, that's a code, that's his shoe size— _ here _ it is." He reads it, swings his satchel to his side, and sticks his arm in it practically up to the shoulder, searching inside of it.

Dirk looks back to Mabel, and puts his sword back in his sylladex. He doesn't want to stab any of the eyebats, in case they explode and ruin her sweater. He grits his teeth, and pokes one in the pupil instead. It feels appalling, like prodding a jar of marmalade. It closes its eyelid, and he works on untangling it from Mabel's hair while he doesn't have to feel the texture of raw eye.

"Ow, ow, ow," winces Mabel. "You've—you've never braided anyone's hair at a sleepover before, have you?"

"'Fraid not," he says.

"There," Dipper cries triumphantly, and takes a flashlight out of his bag. He runs to his sister, and shines the light directly into the pupil of the eyebat Dirk is not working on. It, too, closes its eye, and Dipper works his fingers through his sister's hair only a shade more gently than Dirk is.

"You both need more practice, here," Mabel says, eyes tearing up. "Ow."

"Sorry," Dirk and Dipper say in unison. Dirk feels Dipper's eyes on him, probably surprised that Dirk can be polite, but Dirk ignores him for the moment. Mabel's hair is thick and long, and the eyebat is flapping its wings and being generally uncooperative.

Dirk feels a hand on his arm, and pauses in his work. He sees the robin's egg blue of the fingernails before he finally registers Jane's presence.

"You're both awful at this," she says, not without affection. "Mabel, can you take off your headband?"

Jane turns out to be a natural—or, most likely, the opposite of that. As the only adult Dirk knows who probably actually went to a sleepover as a young teen, she handles Mabel's mane with minimal fuss. The technique seems to involve holding the hair that's by the scalp, minimizing the pull at the far ends. Dirk and Dipper end up being a reluctant audience to the spectacle.

Dirk kicks a rock, turning it over and revealing nothing but dirt. Not even a cool bug to distract him. "Uh," he says. "Nice work with the flashlight. Wish I'd thought of that before getting my fingers all grody."

"It was in the notes," says Dipper. "Grunkle Ford's notes. We found a decoder ring buried in a cave, but we woke up a bunch of those things when we tried to leave."

"Leave your hair down," encourages Jane, gently running her fingers through Mabel's hair as the eyebats fly dizzily away. "It'll hurt for a bit, but nothing'll solve that but time. Are you okay?"

"Fine," says Mabel, smiling, though her eyes are still watery. "I've had spookier stuff happen to me in caves, but in terms of most annoying, that ranks pretty high."

Jane and Mabel link hands, and walk to the backdoor Dirk totally didn't see. He and Dipper head to the window, instead, Dipper because Ford's there and Dirk for—well, the same reason, but with different motivations.

Now that Mabel was safe and sound, Ford was smiling down at Dipper. "Did you find it?"

Dipper nods, proudly showing his stack of notes. "One more piece of the puzzle. Once I get these figured out, I'm betting I'll have a map."   
  
"You won't get any hints from me, my boy." Ford links his hands behind his back, and examines the window. He turns his eyes on Dirk, smiling. "It was considerate of you not to break the windowpane. Most of the local contractors won't come here, anymore."

Dirk raises an eyebrow. "You're welcome?" He wasn't about to jump through the window like a lunatic. He's moving in, but it still isn't his house, not really.

"Come in, Dipper," Ford says, gesturing to the open door. "There's a new young god for you to meet."

They step inside. Dipper waves, and Jane waves back. "Hey, there, person from another dimension. I'm Dipper." He looks up at Ford, clearly impatient. "Grunkle Ford, I'm so close. Can't I just meet everyone at the party?"

"I pretty much am everyone," helps Jane, lips quirked into a smile. "Don't stick around on my account."

Dipper clutches his notes in his hand, with the other hooked under his backpack strap. "Great to meet you! Sorry! Bye!" They hear him race across the sitting room, and then up the stairs.

Mabel sniffs, still red-eyed and sore. "Man, he's a nerd."

Ford nods, apparently bemused. "He's very focused on his current task, Jane."

"Tell me about it," she says, leaning forward on her elbows. "A map, right? Is it a treasure map?"

And just like that, they're conversing around the table again. Never let it be said that growing up in a society is worthless, when it gives you the power to recover from awkwardness, violence, and an unfortunate mix of the two.

-

At first, Dirk didn't see the need for Stan to dress up for this party. Not that he was, or ever, complaining about a dude with a wide-open collar and plenty of chest hair. As more and more people start to arrive, though, he realizes that his little flirty invite to Ford has completely left the sphere of his own designs.

The police show up, which Dirk was ready to complain loudly about, but all they want to do was party. The local teens show up, and Dirk thinks they might start to bully the kids—but no, Wendy is with them, and they give Dipper and Mabel a hero's welcome back to town. He is totally at sea. Sitcoms taught him that there is a strict social hierarchy to keep in mind when it comes to huge groups, but apparently Gravity Falls is, in this and most ways, the exception.

At least Jane is similarly mystified. "Those kids sure have friends in high places. And low places. Just… a lot of friends."

"Thanks, Eagle Eye," says Dirk. They are leaning against the wall in the traditional Coolkid Pose, which looks equally natural for them both. Jane, Dirk suspects, has been to a huge party before. Possibly even one where she didn't know every person in attendance. It's wild.

"Not to say they don't deserve it," she continues, gesturing with her red Solo cup. "They deserve it. It's a nice surprise, seeing sweet but nerdy kids get what they deserve."

Dirk ponders this, sipping his unspiked punch and looking around at all this wholesomeness. "It's weird," he says. "But it's good weird."

Jane smiles against her cup, and Dirk calls it a win.

Roxy wanders back from the snack table, one fist full of popcorn, the other holding a slightly-fizzing-over can of Pitt. "Dirk, why don't we have Pitt at home? It's rad as hell and just the right amount of bubbly. It's like if La Croix didn't suck. We made a bad universe, Dirk."

"We also don't have BABBA, as far as I can tell," he agrees. "It's bullshit to the absolute maximum."

She takes up her post at Dirk's other side, leaning against the wall and managing her popcorn fist. "Done giving your boyf the googly eyes?"

"For now," he says, continuing to scan the room. That gremlin guy is back, and she brought someone who looks like a newscaster. She has a microphone in her hand, but he can't see any cameras. Maybe she just… has it for fun? "He's still down in the lab. We're working on something cool, and we're almost finished with prototype C."

Jane smiles, but also raises an eyebrow. "Do you want to go join him? You look like you're plotting your tactful exit."

Dirk forces his eyes to stop sweeping the horizon. He ends up staring down the punch bowl. "It's not a bad habit," he says immediately. "I grant you that maybe it is not the coolest thing to do at a party, but making sure there are no threats makes sense. I will die on this hill."

"Luckily," says Roxy, "you have two badass babes willing to secure the whatever for you. Perimeter. And area. Radius?"

"Leaving you free to look less like a wax statue of yourself," finishes Jane. "At a party  _ you _ invited  _ us _ to."

Mabel invited them, so Dirk doesn't deign to respond at first, instead chewing on his cup. He allows himself to be distracted by Soos setting up a turntable. How does Soos have the time to run a store, be a handyman, and DJ parties? Does the man never sleep? "The party is nowhere near what I intended when 'I' invited you. Stevie Wonder could see that." Jane met Ford, and soon Jake will, too. Dirk is doing the right thing, and not being secretive or distant. He's absolutely boyfriend material. "It has served his purpose, more or less."

"We could have had brunch," says Jane. "If you wanted us all to meet Ford. Brunches tend to be a kid-free zone due to sounding boring and stupid."

Dirk can't help but scowl at the idea. "First Roxy mentions La Croix, and now you're talking about brunch. What happened, when I was gone? Are we all Los Angeles gays, now? No, I'm not going to introduce you to my boyfriend at brunch. I'm not fifty. This isn't  _ The Birdcage.  _ I can still party when I want to."

Jane squints at him. "Are you sure you're not fifty? That sounded pretty fifty to me."

"Just because you're barely eating solid foods doesn't mean I'm ancient," insists Dirk, who is almost eight whole months older than her, relatively speaking.

Roxy pats him on the shoulder. "Don't get agitated, now. You know how too much excitement is bad for you, in your old age."

"I have one single day on you," says Dirk, changing the rules of his own game. "Maybe tomorrow, you'll be less fuckin' rude."

"Only time will tell," she agrees. "Don't hold your breath. Go get your boyfriend, I want to see him boogie."

With an exaggerated grunt of exertion, Dirk pushes himself off the wall and heads over to the exit. The cluster of teens and technically-teens is in his way, which is fine. He isn't tense, or anything ridiculous like that. That would be stupider than brunch.

He accidentally catches Wendy's eye, and she waves, slumped artfully in a folding chair. "Hey."

"Hey," he says. "Sup?"

"Good punch. Nice party," she says, managing to sound effortless instead of like Worf. "You leaving?"

Mabel, who had been staring at a phone with another girl, looks up. Clearly, she has her ears tuned to such things. "What? No, you're not. It just started!"

Dirk shrugs a shoulder and tries to remember that he isn't one million years old. "I was going to get Ford and come back."

She rolls her eyes. "I've heard that one before."

"Pinkie promise," he says.

"Whoa, that's a pretty solemn vow," says Wendy.

"I'm a solemn guy," says Dirk. "Also, a sorry one. For earlier, Mabel, sorry."

Mabel reaches up and brushes her hair over one shoulder. As per Jane's suggestion, she doesn't have an adorable headband on. "It's fine. I know you were trying to help."

Wendy gives Dirk a curious look. He says, "Braiding accident."

"Wendy knows about eyebats," says Mabel, waving dismissively at Dirk's attempt at tact. "Everyone does now. The days of not being believed by authority are behind us!"

Dirk gives Wendy a curious look, now. She shrugs. "Not being believed about that stuff, anyway. What happened?"

"There was a break in the case," Mabel says, swinging her arms like she's doing a jig sitting down. "Dipper's been all over the place trying to figure out this code thing Grunkle Ford made for him. It's like a treasure hunt, but for nerdy junk. There was a code we had to solve, and it was at the bottom of this cave full of eyebats, and  _ someone," _ she says, poking both her cheeks, "was a little too loud, and then some got stuck in my hair. And this goofball came out with a sword!"

Dirk tilts his head. "Goofball," he says.

Undeterred, Mabel continues. "He was all, ‘Lemme get that for you,' and I was all, ‘Thanks but no thanks, smart guy,' and then Dipper caught up and tried to yank them free, and Roxy—you know Roxy, right, she's that gal over there—no kidding, she had a gun out, ready to take aim and pow pow pow those bats right out of there—"

"I did not see that," says Dirk, a little horrified. Wendy, too, does not look impressed. Mabel's other friend is finally looking up from her phone. "Not that I think she would miss, but that—kind of sucks."

"But then Jane came—that other lady—and it was all hunky-dory from there," finishes Mabel. She throws up her hands and almost splashes Dirk with her soda. "It hurt, but I also felt very popular. And now my scalp is taking a break! Doctor's orders."

"Cool," says Wendy. Dirk has no idea what she's thinking, and imagines he is not the first person to wonder.

"I'll just have to wear two headbands tomorrow," says Mabel. "To catch up."

"Makes sense," says Dirk. He steps back from the group. "Be right back."

"You'd better," Mabel says, smiling. "You promised your pinkie, and I aim to collect."

"That's terrifying, girl," Wendy says, obviously proud. "Good work."

The party sounds more enjoyable from out in the yard, where the music is muted, and Dirk can make out the happy tone of the conversation rather than the words. Soos has started to take over for the CD changer, and is a little too overzealous with the rap horn button. Dirk walks slowly through the early evening, letting himself be cooled down. Parties where everyone is a stranger are a lot less effort, turns out. He never knows when he's going to be sucked into a conversation. He'd rather just kick it with his chosen people.

The best entry to the lab is the elevator in the gift shop, so he takes the long way around. There are probably other entries, but using the elevator is the best way to not give a paranoid person an undue shock. It's the closest he can get to wearing a bell—at least, without being obvious. Ford doesn't like to be coddled.

As soon as the elevator opens to the lab, he realizes why he was scanning the party. No wonder something felt off; Dipper wasn't there. Instead, he's standing on a stool and pointing to a cluster of notes. Ford's hand is on his back, making sure he doesn't fall, and is smiling. They look like they're in the middle of something amazing, together. Dirk enjoys the moment before Ford looks up, and the two of them are still in their own little world, solving a mystery that isn't some huge threat to their lives. It looks calm, and warm, and safe.

"Hey, nerds," says Dirk. "You're invited to the party, you know."

They look up in unison, Ford's expression fond, Dipper's far warier. "Not now, Dirk," says Ford. "What were you saying, Dipper?"

Dipper's eyes widen, and he looks between Dirk and Ford. Dirk walks toward the table in no particular hurry, completely unbothered by Ford's dismissal. Whatever Dipper was looking for, he finds it, and refocuses on the notes. "Uh, well—the cave, I don't think that has any more information in it. I copied down the codebreaker here, and I used it on these four symbols. They translate out to E, N, W, S."

"Very good," says Ford, checking Dipper's work as he explains it. "Which means?"

"It means this circle thing isn't a clock at all," says Dipper, pulling out another scrap of paper. This one has three concentric circles in it, with two lines forming an angle at the center. Dirk could see it as a clock, but it looks more like a sketch of a radar scanner, to him. "It's a compass rose, and these are the cardinal directions. North, South, East, and West."

Dipper fills in some blanks as he talks, and Dirk takes in what he's seeing. The rough edges of the notes line up in a sort of jigsaw, and the mysterious symbols are translated into more familiar shapes as he watches. In the context of it being a map, the Braille-like clusters of squares could be buildings. The huge, amorphous blob is the shadowy forest, surrounding the triangle that has to be the Mystery Shack. Dipper orients the map so that the North symbol is actually facing North, and he continues.

"Fantastic work, Dipper," says Ford, beaming down at the work table, and then at his nephew. "But what about the lines? You said they weren't the hands of a clock."

"That stumped me for a while," Dipper admits. "But then—uh." Dipper looks up at Dirk. "Could you—hand me that protractor, please?"

Dirk blinks, and then picks around in the big cup full of mathematical odds and ends. He pulls out a small half-circle and hands it to Dipper. "Keep going," he urges.

"Thanks," says Dipper, smiling at the map. "So—it's not about the lines, it's about the angle. Thirty-seven degrees." He looks up again to grin triumphantly at Ford. "Thinking about it like that, it's pretty obvious. You keep wanting me to see things that are invisible."

"It's an important skill to cultivate, for men like us," says Ford. Dipper laughs, and Dirk smiles, even though the joke isn't really for him. He doesn't feel like he's intruding anymore, though. This is interesting.

"And for my last trick," says Dipper, enjoying being the center of attention as much as his sister does, "I'll put that two-digit number in here for x, and… shabam." Dipper holds up the map, half-tape and covered in scribbles, and points to the equation at the center with his pencil. "Coordinates. Really long, decimal-y coordinates. All I need to do now is figure out where that is, and I'll find…"

Dirk is on the edge of his proverbial seat. When Dipper lowers the map back down to the table, he can't help himself. "Find what?"

"Something," says Dipper, suddenly frustrated. "I don't know. That's probably what all these weird circles and lines are, they're not Morse code, I checked."

Dirk considers the pattern that Dipper has pointed out. At first, it just appears to be a border, so that the initial puzzle is easier to put together. The fact that Dipper checked for Morse code first thing says a lot about how used to Ford's puzzle bullshit he must be.

"Well," sighs Dipper, putting down his pencil, "it's something, anyway."

Ford begins to speak, but Dirk beats him to the punch. "It's more than something, man. This is incredible."

Dipper looks up again, surprised. "You—really? You think so?"

Dirk runs a finger along one of the maps' seams, careful not to smudge any of the pencil marks. "You didn't even know this was a jigsaw-type puzzle at first, did you? I saw you carrying around separate pieces, like, three days ago."

"I started after the eyebats. Plus," he says, and flips the map over. On the back are the other clues, all with polygons at the edges that line up with other edges. "The more notes I found, the easier it was to figure out what kind of puzzle I was dealing with."

"And cracking the code," continues Dirk, "and finding the cave—you did all that just these past few days?"

"Hey, man," says Dipper, smiling and shrugging, "when inspiration strikes, it strikes hard. I don't know what to tell you."

Dirk looks over to Ford, who has stepped back from the work table. His hands are linked behind his back, and he couldn't look prouder of Dipper. Dirk wants to tell Dipper to turn and look, too—check it out, your Grunkle loves you—but it's not his place to say.

Instead, he offers his fist to bump. "This rules, Dipper. You look like you're pretty damn close."

"Thanks," stutters Dipper, and gives Dirk a kitten-soft knuckle tap. "That's—that's nice of you. Uh. You don't know how close to the end I am? I kind of thought—you and Grunkle Ford might have talked about it."

Dirk shakes his head, and crosses his arms. "This business firmly falls into ‘not my' territory. I don't know what you're looking for, either. This is Ford's thing for you. Cards on the table, I thought it was going to be a riddle for kids five and above. Clearly, I misjudged how good you are at this."

"Yeah," sighs Dipper, still smiling, and taps the map with his eraser. "Not a baby puzzle. More like a Paranoid Crazy puzzle. I don't think Grunkle Ford could make a puzzle for babies, even if he tried."

"About that." Dirk looks at Ford, and does his best to smile less. It's Ford, so it's difficult, but he tries. "Hiding clues in an eyebat-infested cave? Dipper doesn't even have a strife specibus."

Ford's smile refuses to falter, and he bounces his shoulders in a careless shrug. "I don't know what that is. What I do know is that they've handled unlikelier odds than that, and Dipper knows how to handle a few eyebats. Startling them out into the dusk was a bit of a fluke, but all's well that ends well."

Dipper rolls his eyes behind his shades, and addresses Dipper again. "Sorry I almost gave your sister a bob. It seemed like a good call at the time."

"Oh, that's fine," says Dipper. "What is a strife specibus?"

"Tell you what." Dirk turns to jerk a thumb at the elevator. "You both come upstairs and stop having fun without me down here. Have one soda and come back down, I don't care, but these are the terms of our agreement."

"Oookay," says Dipper, immediately suspicious. He hops down from the stool. "Did Mabel ask you to do this?"

"Roxy asked me to bring Ford upstairs for boogying," explains Dirk. "And I don't want you to miss it."

Dipper looks over at Ford, who is suddenly a lot less smiley. "Yeah, okay," says Dipper. "Come on, Grunkle Ford! The people have spoken."

"I'm not a dancing monkey," grouses Ford, stepping into the elevator. "Just because someone is asking me to do it, doesn't mean I am going to."

"Noted," says Dirk, and leans heavily against him. He keeps his arms crossed to keep his hands from wandering—Dipper is less than two feet away—but he lets his shades slip down a bit so he can look at Ford over them. "But what if I am the someone asking you?"

"Wow, this elevator sure is slow," says Dipper, at least twice as loud as is necessary.

Ford, who has no such hangups about keeping his hands to himself, brings one to Dirk's lower back. "You know," he says, voice just slightly lower, "given where we met, it's surprising that I've never seen you dance."

"Get ready to have your mind blown," purrs Dirk. "I call it the White Man's Overbite. All the awkward guys are doing it."

The elevator doors open, and Dipper is first out into the gift shop. He does not stop to look back. "See you in there maybe goodbye!"

Slowly, Ford brings Dirk's back to the wall of the elevator. Dirk uncrosses his arms and brings them around Ford's shoulders, smiling softly to himself, as if this were his plan all along. Ford bends to kiss his cheek, and the elevator doors start to close again. The vending machine starts to swing back against the wall.

"He sure spooks easy," Dirk murmurs, running his fingers through Ford's hair.

"You're a menace," says Ford, and gives him a too-brief peck on the lips. Dirk hears the doors shut, and they begin to descend once more. "Thank you."

Dirk, who had leaned forward to kiss Ford's neck, pauses in surprise. "For being a menace?"

"For being so kind," says Ford.

Dirk doesn't untangle himself, but he does bring his head and shoulders back to the elevator wall. Ford is smiling down at him, one part flirty, two parts proud. Dirk mentally runs through his database of human expressions, trying to see if he's ever been given a look like this, before. He comes up short.

"Dipper has been working very hard on this puzzle," he says. He sounds gentle, as if trying not to be overheard, even in this complete privacy. "He's exceeded my expectations, which are already very high, but he knows he doesn't need to impress me. It was very kind of you to compliment his hard work."

Being wrapped up in Ford has never felt like being a butterfly pinned to a corkboard before. It's the word "kind," he thinks, that is making him squirm inside. "It's interesting," he says, weirdly defensive. "I wasn't lying about it."

"I know," says Ford. He has a face like he wants to hug Dirk, but he is already hugging Dirk. It makes no sense. "He's a brilliant kid. It was nice, watching you two get along."

Dirk tries to unpack what Ford has said, but feels like he lacks the necessary tools. At a loss, Dirk asks, "Are you bribing me with sex to get along with your nephew? Because it's working."

Ford sighs, and Dirk feels him move his arm, then hears him push a button. The elevator rises once more. "I," answers Ford, "am going with you to a party, full of Gravity Falls locals I met through the apocalypse, to willingly dance with you. Once."

"Oh," says Dirk. "And the sex?"

Ford laughs, and kisses him again. However, when the elevator doors open yet again to the gift shop, he actually steps out, leading Dirk back to civilization by their linked hands. Dirk is visiting an unjust universe, where people stop kissing him, and fail to explain why.

"We have to attend the party," says Ford. "It was on the schedule."

"I hate parties," says Dirk. This has only recently become the case, but he announces it like it has always been true. "Blame Dr. Leibhaber, but I just wanted you to meet my friends. Maybe get a taste of what I feel like, juggling names and faces like a psychotic clown."

"I like your friends," says Ford. He then pauses, obviously going over what he's just said, and then nods to himself. Dirk has to smile at the impulse to say the right thing, and then check it for veracity. 

"I do, too," Dirk says, with a touch of Han Solo. "Convenient."

They walk out into the evening. The bright lights of the party, in neon pinks and glittering greens, bring Dirk back, a bit. He takes a moment to look at it, and then at Ford, who has stopped beside him. Ford is smiling, eyes similarly distant. It's possible that neon lights are going to be their "thing," like how some couples have a specific song or city to bond over.

Ford gives Dirk's hand a squeeze. "I've been thinking," he says.

Heroically, Dirk doesn't immediately tense up. "You do that a lot."   
  
"About this," he clarifies. "Meeting Jane, and Roxy before that. I think, looking back, I was nervous."

Dirk blinks up at him, surprised. "Really."

"They're gods," he says. "Anyone would be. But more than that... they're your friends. Before we were all in the same room, I hadn't realized just how different things are, between your old home and mine. Was it difficult?"

Was the transition difficult, he means. Dirk wonders how much lying he'd be able to get away with, and then sighs. "Kind of. I told you it was weird, for me."   
  
"You did," he says. "But I didn't know the extent to which it must have been." He looks on the verge of thanking Dirk again. "You've made quite an effort, with my family."   
  
"And now you've made one with mine," says Dirk. "It doesn't have to be a big deal."   
  
"It might have to be," he disagrees, giving Dirk's hand another reassuring squeeze. "It feels like one. A good one."

Dirk doesn't watch movies as often as Jake, but he knows the basic structure of the romcom. It isn't hard to work out: there's the meet-cute, then the obstacles, some variety of misunderstanding, and then the big kiss. Sometimes, two people are too proud and/or prejudiced to even admit they like each other. Other times, one person has amnesia, and is also suffering from being attracted to Adam Sandler.

He knows he had a meet-cute, with Ford. There was a nightclub and a taser, and it doesn't get much cuter than that. Living here has been a challenge, but they have a plan, now, and they are both good with plans. The evidence says that things are going to get better. And now, after seeing Dirk with more of his friends, Ford understands him, a little more.

"Hey," says Dirk, and tugs a bit on his hand. "Kiss me."

Ford laughs, and does so. It feels like something out of someone else's happy ending. Dirk smiles into it, and promises himself that he'll earn this feeling, and earn the way things are right now, sooner rather than later.


End file.
